This year we expanded our Midday Mass Distributions across the county. The first week of distributions was hosted by our friends at Barton Community Association in Oxford, followed by the second week at our WISH building in Kidlington.

For 3 years now we’ve organised Midday Mass Distributions to save holiday surplus from going to waste – mostly food items. We collect directly from the food businesses and distribute them back to the community asking simply that everyone pay-what-you-can. You can learn more about how the distributions work on this blog post.

Photo credits to Wilson-Cook Photography

Across the 11 days of Midday Mass Distributions in the 2025-2026 season, our team of hard working volunteers helped to distribute just shy of 11,500 kg of surplus to the local community, serving over 1600 people.

Headed up by regular Cherwell Larder volunteers Janet and Steve Cox, our distributions started on Christmas eve and ran until the 8th January. Our volunteers turned up each day to help despite the cold and sometimes bitter weather and they did so with a smile.

Each day saw in excess of 100 visitors, with our busiest day hitting 300 visitors, each coming along to receive some of the delicious food that our friends at Oxford Food Hub, SOFEA, and Savona Foodservice helped us acquire.

During the second week we switched our distribution to our WISH headquarters in Kidlington, where we regularly host weekly larders on a Thursday morning.

We distributed foods such as fresh fruit and vegetables, pastry, frozen meat, ready meals and bread, with members of the public sharing photos to our community of the delicious meals they were able to make. 

Unlike other food larder, Cherwell Larder is not means tested and we don’t charge a subscription, meaning that we are open to all. This is something that we are very proud of. We do however rely on donations to help cover costs and we were grateful this year to receive a grant from Kidlington Parish Council to help make this possible.

Whilst supply wasn’t as big as previous years’, but it was still greatly appreciated by those in attendance. We would like to give a special thanks to Barton Community Association, ODS – Oxford Direct Services (for help with waste collection) Savona Foodservice, Oxford Food Hub and SOFEA. Without them and our wonderful team of volunteers none of this would be possible.