Community Food Shop Manager

Sutton Community Works (SCW) is a Christian charity in South London. Our vision is for our faith in action projects to contribute to a safe and flourishing community in Sutton.

Our work focuses on areas including food poverty, young people, rough sleepers and homelessness. In all our work, our ethos is to love God and others in all we do and say, ensuring people feel seen, heard, understood, and helped.

The Community Food Shop enables Sutton residents who are living with food insecurity to have weekly access to healthy and helpful food, with around 110 households visiting each week.

People visiting the shop come from a vast variety of backgrounds but all have faced difficult life experiences. Beyond food, we also want people to access support to improve their situation, so we pay Citizens Advice to come to the shop every week and provide advice on topics such as housing, debt and benefits.

And as a Christian project we underpin everything with prayer and actively offer prayer to our customers too. The community is real at the Food Shop, and the genuine care and compassion that our 40+ volunteers offer keeps people coming back and building trusting relationships with us.

As one customer said: "Thank you to all the volunteers for their love and support. Being able to feed my family with help from the Food Shop has changed my life."

As Community Food Shop Manager, you can use your leadership experience, excellent communication and organisational skills and Christian faith in a way that makes a real difference in people's lives.

Could you come and lead this amazing project?!

Salary: £32,000 per annum pro rata (plus 5% pension commencing from successful completion of probation period).

Hours: 22.5 per week

Working Pattern: Monday Friday, 9am 1:30pm. Occasional afternoon, Saturday or evening working depending on the needs of the charity and the project.

Annual Leave: 20 days plus bank holidays per annum, pro rata

Location: It is expected that at least 60% of time will be on site at the Community Food Shop (in the St Nicholas Centre, Sutton, SM1 1AY) or at the office (Highfield Hall, 320 Carshalton Road, SM5 3QB). Other time may be worked from home pending agreement with line manager.

Occupational Requirement: This role involves offering and participating in Christian prayer with members of the public and volunteers, leading devotions and group prayers, and providing pastoral care and faith-based leadership to Christian staff and volunteers. It is therefore an occupational requirement for the post-holder to be a practicing Christian.

Role purpose is to:

• Manage smooth and safe day-to-day delivery of the Community Food Shop, supporting customers, managing staff and volunteers and ensuring food stock is sufficient and excellent food hygiene levels are met (75%)
• Strengthen capacity within the service by maintaining excellent relationships with food donors, volunteers and other external organisations, and assisting with onboarding new volunteers (15%)
• Contribute to the ongoing development of the Community Food Shop, with aims to increase efficiency and decrease people s need to return to the Food Shop (10%)
• Keep Christ central to activities in the Food Shop project (always)

We are looking for someone who:

• Shares the Vision, Values and Ethos of Sutton Community Works (see our accompanying Who We Are document)
• Cares deeply for those in need and wants to put their Christian faith into action to serve them through addressing food insecurity
• Has experience supporting vulnerable people or people with complex social backgrounds
• Is hardworking and will enjoy a busy role based in the community
• Has experience leading a team and working with or supervising volunteers
• Is comfortable using electronic systems and devices
• Is highly organised, flexible and adaptable
• Has excellent attention to detail
• Has excellent communication and interpersonal skills
• Has some understanding of safeguarding, health and safety and confidentiality (training can be provided)
• Is preferably a driver with their own vehicle, as this role can involve covering the collection/transport of food to the Food Shop.

Closing date: 30th March 2025

For fuller job description and tasks involved, please download the document 'Community Food Shop Manager - March 2025'.

In your covering letter, please explain why you think you could be the person we are looking for, based on the information provided.

Not quite the right role for you? We are recruiting other roles in this project too - see our Organisation Profile for all current vacancies.