LEAP Together: A Review of 2025
- digginitlochwinnoc
- Jan 26
- 5 min read
LEAP Together is the collection of projects within our charity which are focussed on community and wellbeing, as well as climate action. The Community Larder, the Feel Good Festival and Diggin’ It offer a wide range of services and activities for people across a wide rural area. Last year added a new project within the LEAP Together group for a retail and community space on the High Street - the working title is currently The Old Bank. Here is a look at what we delivered in 2025 between all four projects:
WHAT WE DID
Lochwinnoch Community Larder:
We grew our membership beyond 2000 members, from nearly 800 households, making us one of the busiest pantries in the country.
Delivered more than 7000 meals to vulnerable and isolating households from Renfrewshire and North Ayrshire.
Hosted two courses of free cooking classes and community meals, as well as a fermenting demonstration; these were extremely well reviewed by the diverse groups who took part.
We ran 3 community cafe events with free drinks and baking which were well attended.
We significantly improved our facilities with an internal refurbishment to our Pantry Cabin and storage space, and improvements to our social outdoor area too.
Set up three new community growing spaces to support food supply to the Larder and hired a part-time Food Growing Coordinator to facilitate this.
Handled more than 40 tonnes of surplus food from Supermarkets and distribution, which equated to a NET saving of more than 110 tonnes CO2 after we deduct emissions from volunteer transport. This is approx. the emissions from 24 average petrol cars operating over one year, or equivalent to 30 homes.
We remained open over the festive break in December 2025 as we know this is the peak time of food waste and of need, but it is also when most other community food projects close. This involved evening shifts on Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve supported by large teams of volunteers.
For Halloween 2025 we opened the Larder and welcomed c100 children for free hotdogs and hot chocolate for as first event of it's kind in the village - it was a great success.
We set up two new shifts specifically focussing on young people: These included:
A regular Friday lunchtime opening during term time, exclusively for the P7s from the local Primary School to ensure they had access to healthy and affordable (free) food
A weekly after-school book swap event for the whole community, in partnership with Kibble Forest School, a local residential facility for vulnerable children.
Hosted Team Building events for volunteers including a lunch during National Volunteer Week and a Christmas gathering.
We were featured on BBC Radio Scotland and asked to contribute to a guide with Circular Communities Scotland on how to set up a Community pantry, which involved making a short film and contributing to an information pack.
We carried out extensive surveys and consultations on member experiences which included feedback gathered from the elderly people we support.
We surveyed our Members on how they felt we could generate more donations from the project, while maintaining dignity for those who use the service due to financial constraints.
Attended our local Gala and gave away free snack bags for children.
We upskilled the Team through internal and external training including HeartStart First Aid, Food Hygiene Levels 1 & 2, Funding Training.
We onboarded 17 new adult volunteers, and 4 new young volunteers to our Duke of Edinburgh Team.
We made some great videos outlining the work we do:
Feel Good Festival:
We hosted a Feel Good Weekend and wellbeing Fair in May 2026 which saw more than 35 events and had more than 700 engagements.
Delivered a fun Easter Egg Hunt event in Spring which was attended by more than 70 individuals.
Partnered with the Larder to open at Halloween and feed more than 100 local children free hotdogs and hot chocolate at a community event which we received exceptional feedback on.
Delivered a range of activities for children during the October school break which included craft events and drama classes.
Hosted a Pumpkin Hunt event which was attended by nearly 100 people in a competitive Team activity based across the whole village.
Diggin’ It:
Undertook consultation which will lead to delivery of up to 4 new Seed Libraries in 2026, based in Johnstone and Beith and/or Kilbirnie, North Ayrshire.
Hosted an all-day community event attended by over 100 community members offering free seeds, free tea and coffee, gardening advice and kids crafts.
Continued to offer open pollinated seeds from our existing Seed Library based on Lochwinnoch High Street, to a membership of nearly 300 households.
The Old Bank:
We have worked to put in place funding to refurbish a disused local building in the heart of the village which was formerly a branch of Royal Bank of Scotland.
Completed a full Community Consultation exploring whether the idea to open a charity shop and community hub, would be welcomed by the community; the idea was considered as a possible income generator to help ensure the future financial safety of the rest of our projects.
Following positive results in the surveys, we developed a robust Business Plan for the idea. The proposal is to create a vibrant community/retail space, meeting room, storage, kitchen and courtyard for workshops and pop-up eatery events and small community events.
This work has involved planning permission and building warrant applications, instruction of solicitors, surveyors, architects and marketing companies, and developing a detailed refurbishment specification.
Projected Expenditure for 2026/27 (February - January):
A LOOK AHEAD
For the coming year our priorities are to continue our vital services for the community. This allows us to develop more capacity to attend to improving financial sustainability. We are committed to giving The Old Bank project a strong launch this year in the hope it will produce income which will help to support our other charitable activities.
We also hope to make some improvements to our facilities at the larder by further extending our Community Fridge Cupboard and making the Larder accessible to wheelchair users. We would like to implement a swipe card system for access and so we can record data from out-of-hours visitors. And we plan to deliver a Cookbook - this is already under development. We will host another series of events in May 2026 for the Feel Good Festival and funding-dependant we would like to host a parade at Halloween again following the success of our 2024 procession; this was a great way to showcase the creative outputs of inclusive community workshops engaging high numbers. We look forward to launching new Seed Libraries in North Ayrshire and Johnstone this year and seeing our growing areas develop.
You can follow our socials for more information on each project:
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