Hello everyone, welcome to our new blog! You can look forward to the very latest news and pictures and keep up to date with how we're doing, what we're doing and who we're working with!
February 2016
Thank you Corinne!
The Trustees have announced that Corinne has stepped down
from the post of Manager. They would like to thank her for her hard work and
commitment. The Trustees, staff and volunteers wish her well as she begins a
new chapter in her life.
‘With a little help from our friends’…
Our local
community has been so generous:
Fatface
decided instead of discounting their products during the notorious Black Friday
they would donate to the Foodbank a cheque of £897 was
gratefully received.
Barnardo's Greenstead Children’s Centre decided to forego
their Christmas Secret Santa and donated £100.
Congratulations to Alan, Ashley and Nathan who walked 21
miles as part of ‘Walk to Work’ and raised funds for our new computers which we
hope will be installed in the next week or two.
The Independent
Order of Oddfellows, a donation of £60 after they had a talk about the Foodbank
Hair Factory
decided not to take their tips but to use the money to buy shampoo which they
have donated.
Seeing our
plea on Facebook for toiletries, Sareta
from www.kikiblahblah.com, made some beautiful handcrafted soaps for our
clients to enjoy.
A community speaking competition programme organised by First
Give in collaboration with St Benedict's Catholic College was recently held …
the standard was very high, however, St Benedict’s Catholic College girls team won
first prize of £1,000 when they spoke about the work of the Foodbank. The £1000
will be donated to the Foodbank.
There
is a new look in the client area, Jacquie and Andy have donated two settees and
a request was put out for some new coffee tables…thanks to Emmaus for their
donation. .
And the generosity continues…
Simon Bloom, is taking part in the London Marathon this year
to raise money for the Foodbank. Please
share and support him if you can:
One of our ex
trustees is going through some personal pain (as an overweight ex Trustee) to
support the charity in a fundraiser. There is an option to join in if you want
to fundraise and support:
The Lent Challenge …could
you take it up….?
The ‘Challenge’ is to live on a Foodbank parcel for 3 days -
just as our clients do and to donate what you would normally spend on shopping
to Colchester Foodbank. If you would like to take part …email
info@colchester.foodbank.org.uk for further details and put I AM IN into the subject. Further
details will be sent to you! The foodbank is to be open on 18th, 22nd
and 27th February to collect parcels.
Jeannette worked out approximately how much our food parcels
are worth using Tesco mid range prices. A standard parcel is worth £27.50,
whereas a family parcel is worth £41.50.
Did you know…
The Foodbank started in 2008 before the credit crunch began to take
effect. A group of people got together to question as to whether Colchester
would need a Foodbank. An appeal was made to churches and schools for food at
harvest time in 2009. The response was
overwhelming! Initially the food was stored at the Big Yellow where in the end
three storage units were required.
Initially, Colchester Council distributed
the food parcels from Angel Court Offices, and when they closed, the Salvation
Army Citadel and Eld Lane Baptist Church were used. Everything was then moved
to Moorgate where we are now.
National Trusell Trust News
There are over 400 Foodbanks across the UK, giving food and
support to people in crisis and in the last year Foodbanks gave 1,084,604 three
day emergency food supplies to people in crisis.
Trussell Trust Foodbanks have given more emergency food supplies to
people in the first six months of the 2015/16 financial year than during the
same period in the previous year which is an overall rise of three percent on
last year’s figures. Foodbanks are also increasingly providing additional
services to help people out of poverty.
This month’s data
Food
collected from supermarkets this month: Waitrose 686.2 Kgs, Tesco Highwoods 684.4
kgs, Tesco Hythe 426 Kgs, ASDA 143.2 kgs. and the Coop 3 weekly delivery
728.6 kgs. A
total of 2668.4kgs. We are continuing to collect from our supermarkets as
usual. All the supermarkets have had new lists of items we are getting short
of.
This month we
gave out 57 family parcels and 150 standard, an increase of just 3 standard
parcels compared to last year, family parcels remain the same.
Good news
Jeannette
has been updating the Foodbank Facebook page nearly every day. There are 1109
likes and there have been 18 new page followers in just one week. Our aim is to
reach out to as many as possible. Items posted are - the up-to-date items needed list (which we
seem to get very good responses from) as well as photos of donors to celebrate
their generosity
Other news
The
car which had been donated has now been given to Colchester Institute to be
used by students as part of their car maintenance course.
The
container has now gone, there is still some food stored in the shop in St Johns
Street, which will gradually be moved back to the Foodbank.
Supermarket
Collection Days
A
collection day has been arranged for Saturday March 12th at Waitrose
between 10am and 3pm. If you can give an hour or so of your time during the day,
it would be much appreciated.
Please leave a message for Anne at the Foodbank. info@colchester.foodbank.co.uk
We
are hoping to do an afternoon collection involving Colchester United
footballers, watch out for more information!
