April 2024
This year we are holding our first ever sponsored walk to raise funds for Windsor Foodshare. Join us on Saturday 27 April 2024 as we ‘loop the lake’ at Virginia Water to raise funds and supplies for Windsor Foodshare. You can read more about it here.
June 2023
Learning to share
Windsor Foodshare is incredibly fortunate to receive donations from schools across the Windsor area and beyond. From the top left photograph clockwise, these donations included:
- Clewer Green First School Windsor – trolley loads of food brought to us by Reverend Rosie Webb with the help of three pupils.
- Queensmead School – Witherslack Group’s Queensmead school filled and dropped off their third donation box (with the trolley taken in by one of our most dedicated volunteers – Alan Brown from Lions Club of Windsor).
- William Street Nursery – A lovely visit and donation by William Street Nursery. The children were adorable and so well behaved.
- Dedworth Green First School – The school has been collecting food to help celebrate the Sikh festival Vaisakhi. The festival is dedicated to farmers who provide food for the community.
Help from the community
In this quarter, Windsor Foodshare has been fortunate to be supported by a number of neighbourhood, community and faith groups across the area. These include (clockwise from top right):
- Castle View Windsor – residents at Castle View Windsor had a right royal collection to mark the coronation of Their Majesties King Charles and Queen Camilla.
- Glee Club UK Windsor – at the end of every term, Glee Club UK Windsor hold a concert and ask everybody to bring a food donation for Windsor Foodshare. Choir leader James Manwaring dropped off the latest haul.
- RCCG Praise Embassy, Eton Wick – Olusayo, Christiana, Eunice and Elizabeth dropped off RCCG Praise Embassy’s donation at our foodhub at Dedworth Green Baptist Church.
- Francis Road – not only did residents on Francis Road donate food as part of their street party, they collected £150 to donate to Windsor Foodshare.
Thank you to all of the streets and resident groups who collected and donated as part of coronation celebrations. Your kindness and community spirit is hugely appreciated
Corporate kindness
Windsor Foodshare relies on donations from across the community. This includes the local and regional business community. In this quarter, we’ve had donations and hosted volunteers from Mattel, Centrica, Groupe SEB, Morrisons Energy Solutions and Legoland.
- Mattel (top two photos) – we had two great donations from Mattel. In March, we received a load of toys which we could add to our raffle prizes. In May, this was followed by a large donation of chocolate.
- Groupe SEB (bottom left photo) – Groupe SEB provided an incredibly generous cash donation of £3,272. This will pay for SIX WEEKS’ worth of fruit and veg for our clients.
- Morrisons Energy Services (bottom right photo) – Morrisons Energy Services have been a great supporter of Windsor Foodshare. In April, Justine Treanor dropped the latest collection of food. Justine as been encouraging her colleagues to donate food to us for the last nine months.
Putting the pieces together
In May, we were delighted to have volunteers from Legoland Windsor come to help out. As well as volunteering, they took three permanent donation boxes that will be placed in various places around the Legoland Windsor site to collect food donations for us. It is support like this that helps us keep feeding families in need.
One women’s trash …
… is another’s treasure!
Windsor’s professional reorganisation and decluttering superstar Roxify brought us 197 bags from her most recent job.vThank you, Roxy! We always love it when you visit and especially when you bring carrier bags! We regularly run out of bags. If you have a stash at home that you want to go to good use, please think of us.
Helping to carry the load
We would like to extend a massive thank you to Gwen Powell and all of her team at CleanConscience for the very generous donation of over 2,500 carrier bags. CleanConscience is a UK charity that works to reduce waste and poverty in the hospitality industry. They do this by collecting and redistributing unwanted items, such as furniture, equipment, and food, to charities and community groups.
In 2022 alone, CleanConscience helped to divert over 5,500 tonnes of waste from landfill or incineration, and they supported over 33 community organisations and registered charities. Although we strongly encourage reusing and recycling, carrier bags are a constant struggle for us. These bags will be a huge help.
Gwen also donates toiletries and other essential items to Windsor Foodshare. She is a another great example of someone who is always willing to help others, and we are so grateful for her support.
Building momentum at 73a Alba Road
Contractors began work this week on the fitout of our new charity headquarters at 73a Alma Road. The main works have been split into two phases, with phase one scheduled for completion in six to eight weeks. Phase two will follow on immediately afterwards, pending the successful completion of phase one.
This is a momentous occasion and the culmination of many months of hard work by a dedicated team of volunteers and staff.
In addition to the building works, we are also in the process of planning how best to use our new space to benefit our guests and volunteers. We will provide regular updates on both the building works and our plans for the new headquarters in the coming weeks and months.
We are incredibly excited about this new chapter in our charity’s history and we look forward to sharing it with you.
Current appeals
Can you help with any of the items that we are currently running very short on?
- TINNED SPAGHETTI – We do not have enough to supply our clients in coming weeks. We typically provide 150 cans a week as part of our food packages.
- CARRIER BAGS – It is an on-going struggle for us to have enough carrier bags. Clients do their best to bring back bags, but, overtime, they need to be replaced. If you have a stash of these that you can donate we would be really grateful.
- UHT MILK – We are currently running low on long-life milk. This is one of the items that almost all clients ask for as part of their food packages.
We are one of the few foodbanks that is able to supply fresh fruit and vegetables on a weekly basis. We need help to continue.
We feel strongly that our fruit and veg provision is vitally important. For some of our clients, this is the only fresh food they will get.
Last year, we spent over £21,000 a year on fruit and veg. With rising food prices, this bill sharply increased over the last six months.
The annual total is a large figure. But when you break it down over the people we help to feed (7,281 in 2022 alone), it works out to around £2.88 per person.
How you can help
You could sponsor a person to receive fruit and vegetables with a regular donation of £15 a month. If this is too much, you could consider sponsoring them for one week a month (£3.50 a month).
One-off donations are also invaluable to help us to keep providing this much-needed fresh food.
How to donate
The easiest way to donate is via Just Giving. If you can, please remember to add gift aid as this gives us 25% on top of your donation! www.justgiving.com/windsorfoodshare
January 2023
Royal visitors lend an ear and a hand
On Thursday 26 January, the Prince and Princess of Wales visited Windsor Foodshare’s hub at Dedworth Green Baptist Church. They were shown how the food bank works, met with volunteers and then helped sort donations.
The couple praised volunteers for the ‘vital’ work they do at the food bank. The Princess of Wales revealed that their three children were also aware of the work carried out at Foodshare because it is one of the charities supported by their new school.
The visit has already provided invaluable media coverage – both for Windsor Foodshare and for food banks across the country. The Daily Mail reported that Windsor Foodshare helped around 7,000 people a year and noted that demand has grown “by 18 per cent in the last 12 months as the cost of living crisis has bitten”.
There are more photographs and links to news stories on Windsor Foodshare’s Facebook page here.
Every little helps!
Early in December, people got into the giving spirit a little bit early to help Windsor Foodshare as Tesco Dedworth welcomed us back for another food drive.
We set up our stall in the foyer and had a fantastic reception from customers and staff. Tesco kindly host one of our donation bins, but our food drives really help us to raise awareness and increase donations.
A big thank you to customers and staff at Tesco for a fantastic weekend.
Many hands make light work
Early in December, Windsor Foodshare was pleased to welcome back pupils and teachers from Trevelyan Middle School (Wood Close, Windsor).
Trevelyan has a permanent donation box in the school. They also organise food drives at school to increase awareness of what is needed by Foodshare. Finally, they commandeer one of the school vans to drop off their donations!
We are very grateful to the parents, pupils, teachers and other staff at Trevelyan for their continued and generous support.
NetAppy Christmas
Employees from NetApp came to Windsor Foodshare for the day on the Wednesday before Christmas. They made up Christmas bags for every single one of our clients. Each bag contained all the goodies you would need for a Christmas feast.
Not only did they come and pack these festive offerings, but they raised the funds for the contents and went out to shop for all of the items.
We were able to top them up with all the extra donations we had received from generous donors (including ice skating vouchers from Windsor On Ice and gifts from Craft Coop Windsor). On top of this their parent company matched the fundraising they did. This has been added to our bank account for other items we will need through next year. It was an amazing sight to see and a joy to welcome the 14 NetApp employees. Hope to see you all again soon!
A raft of donations
Another batch of generous donations this month came from corporate donors and individuals.
The top two photos are from De Vere Beaumont Estate, Windsor and Slough Borough Council. Employees from De Vere Beaumont Estate brought in a wonderful trolley of donations. This included a very welcome haul of toiletries. John from Slough Borough Council dropped in with a wonderful donation for us.
On the bottom left, this lovely donation was from everyone at The Willows Riverside Park. These lovely gents intend to keep the collection going through the year from their wonderful residents.
Finally, we had the pleasure of meeting Stuart and Emily Baker who brought along their lovely children Max and Louie. Emily will be pleased that I chose the ‘sensible’ photo rather than dad’s ‘silly’ picture!
Singing for suppers
Early in January we had a surprise cash donation. It came from money raised by the Orchard Avenue Residents’ Association’s carol singing. We also got this email explaining how they raised the money:
”I am a resident of Orchard Avenue and on Christmas Eve a group of us, including some budding musicians, sang carols and collected for charity.
Someone suggested Windsor Foodshare and, since you are local to us, we all agreed you should receive the funds. I hope you are having a wonderful New Year and that our contribution is a help to you.”
As well as bringing festive cheer to the houses that they visited, they collected a fantastic £123.40.
Thank you so much to everyone that took part and to the residents who donated. This will ensure six people receive fresh fruit and vegetables for a month.
Essential New Year donations
Once the tree is put away and the tinsel taken down, we start the new year with our reserves severely depleted. So we are particularly grateful for donations in January.
Some of the highlights from January’s kind donations are (clockwise):
- Willow’s Riverside Park Windsor – the donation was dropped off by Brian (Treasurer) and Daphney (part of the organising team) and is the latest in their very kind regular donations.
- Mrs Beatrice Guest, one of our very generous regular donors, who bought fresh fruit, vegetables, eggs and butter.
- Alice and Karen brought in a wonderful haul from the Pre-assessment Department at the Princess Margaret Hospital. This year, instead of sending Christmas cards across the hospital, they spent the money on food and toiletries to donate to Foodshare.
- Finally, a very generous donations dropped off to us this week by Tim from Mention Me.
Hoard of the dance
We took in an incredible donation in December from the Inspire Line Dancers. Inspire Dance School runs its line dancing classes at Clewer Youth & Community Centre, Parsonage Lane, Windsor.
The group had a Christmas collection for the food bank. They brought over a vast array of selection boxes, Christmas cake and mince pies. As well as providing essential food through the festive period, donations like these mean that Windsor Foodshare can provide its clients with something a bit more special at this time of year.
Wrapping up a busy year
Can you help with any of the items that we are currently running very short on?
- TINNED SPAGHETTI – We do not have enough to supply our clients in coming weeks. We typically provide 150 cans a week as part of our food packages.
- CARRIER BAGS – It is an on-going struggle for us to have enough carrier bags. Clients do their best to bring back bags, but, overtime, they need to be replaced. If you have a stash of these that you can donate we would be really grateful.
- UHT MILK – We are currently running low on long-life milk. This is one of the items that almost all clients ask for as part of their food packages.
We are one of the few foodbanks that is able to supply fresh fruit and vegetables on a weekly basis. We need help to continue.
We feel strongly that our fruit and veg provision is vitally important. For some of our clients, this is the only fresh food they will get.
Last year, we spent over £21,000 a year on fruit and veg. With rising food prices, this bill sharply increased over the last six months.
The annual total is a large figure. But when you break it down over the people we help to feed (7,281 in 2022 alone), it works out to around £2.88 per person.
How you can help
You could sponsor a person to receive fruit and vegetables with a regular donation of
£15 a month. If this is too much, you could consider sponsoring them for one week a month (£3.50 a month).
One-off donations are also invaluable to help us to keep providing this much-needed fresh food.
How to donate
The easiest way to donate is via Just Giving. If you can, please remember to add gift aid as this gives us 25% on top of your donation!
www.justgiving.com/windsorfoodshare
Van you help?
We are looking to buy a van to facilitate donation pick ups and food deliveries. Do you know anyone who can help?
At the moment, volunteers use their own vehicles and time to collect donations from supermarket collection points. They also collect from the schools, churches, businesses and houses that have Foodshare donation points.
This is how we currently transport goods from our two distribution points (which will increase to three when Alma Road is in operation). It is also how we deliver food to clients who are not able to collect from us for various reasons.
Having a Foodshare van would help us to be far more efficient. It would also ensure that we are making the best use of our volunteers’ time and resources.
We are currently looking at whether we can apply for any grants to help meet the cost. In addition, we are contacting van suppliers to see if they have any schemes that help charities.
Can you help? Do you know any companies that would be able to supply a van at the lowest price? Do you know any companies that would be interested in sponsoring the van (with prominent logo placement)?
November 2022
They sowed fields that yielded a fruitful harvest
Harvest festivals are marked each year at schools and churches across the country. As well as celebrating a successful year in agriculture, they provide a moment to give thanks for all the good and positive things in the world. As part of expressing gratitude, many groups collect food for those in need.
This year, we have been the grateful recipients of generous harvest festival collections from an incredible number of groups:
- churches and faith groups (All Saints’ Church, Windsor, Windsor Fellowship Church, Windsor Muslim Association, Windsor Methodist Church, Sacred Heart Church, Sunningdale, St Peters And St Andrews, Old Windsor, John the Baptist, Eton Wick);
- primary schools (Braywood C of E First School, Dedworth Green First School, Clewer Green School, King’s Court First School, Datchet St Mary’s Academy, Trinity St Stephens School, Eton Wick C of E First School, Eton Porny School, Coworth Flexlands School and St Edwards First School);
- middle schools (St Edwards Royal Free Ecumenical Middle School, Trevelyan Middle School);
- high schools (Queensmead School);
- nurseries (Bright Horizons, St Leonard’s Road, Alba – Little Fingers Montessori School and The Lawns Nursery School and Children’s Centre);
- scouting groups (6th Windsor Brownies); and
- other organisations (Windsor and Maidenhead Young Farmers, Berkshire Young Farmers, Glee Club UK Windsor).
Thank you so much to everyone who has organised and/or donated to a harvest festival collection this year. These gifts are essential as we enter our busiest time of the year.
Many hands make light work
Windsor Foodshare has been delighted to host visits from school groups in the local area. As well as getting a ‘behind the scenes’ look at how donations are sorted and distributed, the children provided welcome volunteer help.
Thank you to the teachers and children from St Edwards First School and Braywood C of E First School for joining us. We hope to welcome you all again soon!
A drive to donate
We have held successful food drive days in Tesco in Dedworth and Waitrose in central Windsor. Both supermarkets kindly host food collection points for us. Food drives are a great chance to turbo-charge donations by bringing shoppers’ attention to the work that we do.
This year’s drives have been a huge success and have been vital in filling up stock for the winter. Thank you to Tesco and Waitrose for hosting us and to all the staff and customers who helped to make the food drives such a success.
Blessings from business
Windsor Foodshare is blessed by the support it receives from businesses across the area. Whether it is hosting a food donation box, raising money or hosting food collection drives, employees really go the extra mile to help out.
In this edition of the newsletter, we’re highlighting the incredible support that we’ve had from British Gas Centrica and Amplity Health.
Centrica – British Gas at Windsor kindly donated hampers to give to our clients. They were given a budget for each hamper and went all out to create and make up hampers for each different category. With hampers for a family with a baby, Halloween-themed hampers, for an older person living on their own, a large family-sized hamper with toiletries and even Christmas hampers.
Amplity Health used their annual development conference to make a large donation to Windsor Foodshare. Amplity Health’s Brooke Grange explains more:
“The Amplity Health Capability Development and Consultant Team wanted to do something different for their annual conference this year and give back to the wider community. After some discussion on the issues arising in 2022, it was agreed that helping ensure people have something to eat was a big priority. So instead of spending money on another provider to come in and do training workshops, it was decided to use that budget to donate food to Windsor Foodshare where we hope it will help others through these tough times.”
Thank you as well to staff and customers at K1 Windsor Gym, Trinity Yard, Windsor, Morrisons in Bracknell, Overbury plc, Homemade by Philippa (www.homemadebyphilippa.uk), Morrison Energy Services Cadent, Windsor Yards, Innovations Hair, Dedworth Road, Windsor for their very kind donations.
Shiny new drop-off boxes and new collections points
Since the last newsletter, we have new drop off points at Five Star Gym on Vale Road, Windsor and Morrisons Daily in Springfield Crescent (following their store makeover and conversion from Costcutter). We have also installed new collection boxes at Horler and Associates Limited in Datchet, Windsor Fellowship Church, Dedworth Green Baptist Church, Windsor, Fitness Space, Ascot, Innovations Hair, Dedworth Road, Windsor and the Co-op in Old Windsor.
Karen Simpson also provides a drop off point in Old Windsor as one of our street collectors, as well as doing amazing work helping to collect at the Co-op and leafletting her street. Thank you to Karen and all of our street collectors.
Sponsoring fruit and vegetables
Our biggest single expense comes from providing fresh fruit and vegetables. Whilst expensive, this is an essential cost helping us to provide balanced and nutritious food packages.
Farmers’ and suppliers’ costs are increasing. This, in turn, means it is even more expensive for us to buy our supplies. Stopping buying fruit and veg is not something we want to contemplate – we are one of a limited number of foodbanks that are able to supply fruit and vegetables.
To help us meet increasing costs, we are looking for people to sponsor our fruit and veg provision. To donate, please click on the links below:
Requests for toiletries and cleaning products
Toiletries and cleaning products are extremely important elements of the support that we offer to clients. These items are distributed once per month. Whilst they are vital, they can be overlooked when people are thinking about donations.
Our monthly toiletries and cleaning product packages include:
- Toothpaste;
- Toothbrushes;
- Toilet rolls (x 3);
- Shampoo;
- Washing up liquid;
- Bottle of laundry liquid;
- Shower gel;
- Hand wash;
- Deodorant; and
- Cleaning spray.
We really need to increase donations of toiletries and cleaning products. Please consider this list if you are dropping off donations to a collection point or the food hub.
Alma Road update
As highlighted in our previous updates, 73A Alma Road will provide a single home for Windsor Christian Action and the four projects for which it is responsible (Windsor Foodshare, More Than A Shelter, Windsor Homeless Project and Street Angels).
This month, the redevelopment project took a huge step forward thanks to help from Warriors of Warmth. Warriors of Warmth provide free heating efficiency advice to charities across the UK, using trade donations from experienced and charitable installers across the UK. The Warriors took on their biggest project to date to instal heating throughout 73A Alma Road.
Check out Warriors of Warmth’s Twitter feed to see photos and videos from the installation weekend. A huge thank you to everyone who donated their time and resources and to the businesses that sponsored the project (click here for a list of sponsors).
Happy 90th Birthday, Tony!
Happy 90th birthday to one of our wonderful volunteers, Tony Quirke! He was 90 years young this month and he still gives up his time to volunteer for us!
Tony is such an amazing, unassuming man and we are really very lucky to have him volunteer for us. Thank you, Tony for everything you do for us and here’s wishing you a really special birthday!
August 2022
Foodshare Day
Did you spot the special visitor on our Tesco Foodshare day?
What a scoop for Windsor Foodshare. We had the pleasure of welcoming our local MP Adam Afriyie to Tesco in Dedworth during our three-day Foodshare event. Our Facebook post on his presence did attract some controversial comments and caused a bit of a stir but receiving over 40 comments only helped to boost its popularity on Facebook and get over 7000 views for Windsor Foodshare.
The event was a great success and replenished our stocks, if you visited us and donated that day, thank you so much!
DONATION BOXES
We now have donation boxes throughout Windsor, in Tesco Dedworth, Waitrose, King Edwards Court, Co-op, Old Windsor, Woodys Café, Dedworth, St. Edwards Middle School, and Marist Infant and Senior school, as well as Nisa and Hair By Us in Eton Wick.
What great help from Marist School!
What a pleasure to have Marist school into help us last month. They collected an amazing amount of food which they brought with them and helped us to sort and pack ready to distribute to local families. They were a lovely bunch of girls and bounced around with such enthusiasm. When they got back to school, they kindly wrote us some letters about their experiences with us.
Please let us know if you are part of a school group that would like to come and volunteer for the day.
Eid at Dedworth Manor
The Windsor Muslim Association kindly donated food to WFS at the Prayers in the Park for the celebration of Eid at Dedworth Manor. Windsor Foodshare Manager, Sarah Kember, attended the event to represent us, listen to the prayers, and receive the donations. Thank you, Mr. Arif, for organizing this, and the ongoing monthly donations to us.
Donor thank you’s
Each week, we are visited, or collect, donations from members of the public and businesses, in the past few months we must say thank you to:
- James Manwaring and the Glee Club – every time they have a concert, they ask people to bring along a donation for us.
- Melissa Galvan, Mrs. J. Best, Mr. J.F. Holdstock, Nicola Horn, The Mistlins, Mrs. S. Macleod, Mrs. Claire Shiels, Debbie Penrose, Kevin Taylor, Sandra & Rob Jellyman, and Fiona Lloyd who have all donated via our Amazon Wish List.
- K1 Fitness – Nick Collins, who organised a collection box at his gym.
- Priestley Bakers – who donate bread and pastries to us every week.
- Craft Co-op, who co-ordinate Bag for Life Amnesty
- Hilltop First School, collecting on our behalf
- Serena Smorti, food donations
- Manju Bedhara, food donations
- 1st Clewer and 6th Windsor Brownies, collecting on our behalf
- Rotary Club of Windsor
Numbers are still rising
The number of individuals needing our support are rising, at a faster rate than ever seen before, in the last month there were 546 people who benefited from Foodshare support, a rise of just under 200 on the previous year. All this, combined with a significant fall in our regular donations of food and financial support, we know that we are going to have a difficult winter.
Ways that you could help?
You can donate to us in many ways, by giving food, finance, or your time:
To donate food, please buy an extra tin and drop it in one of collection boxes in the supermarket, visit our Instagram or Facebook page to see our Amazon Wish List, which always has the foods we are most in need of, or drop foods off with us on a Wednesday (9.30 to 1.00), or Thursday (9.30 to 3.00) at Dedworth Green Baptist Church, Smiths Lane. As a guide, the top five foods in shortest supply are usually
- Tinned Meat
- Tinned Fish
- Long Life Milk
- Tinned Desserts
- Tinned Cooked Pasta
To donate finance, the best way is to donate via our Just Giving Page, which can be found in the bio on our Instagram profile, or visit our website
If your employer, or company is looking to boost their Corporate Social Responsibility profile, and would like to support us, we’d be delighted to work and partner with you?
Shopping at Sainsbury’s, do you have a Nectar Card? If you don’t, we can apply for one on your behalf and any points will go directly to FoodShare and be redeemed for items in short supply.
Could you, your company, school, or group arrange a Foodshare Collection box?
Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter, and like, add comments and share our posts. Every share means that our message gets out to more people, raising awareness and support.
Missed any opportunities, we’re always open to new ideas on how we could increase our donations of both food and finance, so if you have any brilliant ideas or suggestions, please let us know.
The Alma Road Project
You might have heard about Windsor Christian Actions new project, 73a Alma Road, and seen the hashtag Under One Roof. Windsor FoodShare is one of the projects that fall under WCA, along with the Homeless Project, Street Angels and More Than a Shelter.
Work is shortly to start on the building, with an aim to have everything finished for all the projects to use by the end of the year. All four projects will use the Alma Road building in some way, we are working towards setting up a further food distribution point, whilst retaining our existing one at DGBC and Kerith. This will help us be more accessible and able to help more people.
The 73a Alma Road web page is now live with a link to our crowdfunding page. If you would like to help us raise money towards a new community café, kitchen and roof at 73a Alma Road, the new physical hub for the projects that sit under Windsor Christian Action, click on the link above.
Thank you for your support, if you would like any more information on anything within the newsletter, please contact us on
- manager@windsorfoodshare.org.uk
- volunteers@windsorfoodshare.org.uk
- donations@windsorfoodshare.org.uk
May 2022
It’s been a busy couple of months at Foodshare, since our last update in February – numbers are up, and food donations are down. Despite this we managed to feed 450 people in April (not including tomorrow)
Mike Sells and Simon Kerr have been busy resurrecting the Street Collection Boxes, we have increased our collections to include food donations from the new Aldi, Waitrose at Egham, and Tesco Wexham. They supply foods shortly approaching their sell by date, which are a useful addition to supplement the long-life foods we give out. We have changed our supplier for fresh and fruit and vegetables and the quality is fantastic.
A new ambient box is on order for Aldi Windsor and a second donation box has been asked for at Waitrose Windsor, as well as a Tesco Dedworth Drive Day, planned for May. We are always looking for ways to increase our donations – any ideas are welcome.
The volume of deliveries to clients who cannot get to Dedworth is increasing week on week, the last week in March there were 26 individual deliveries, this has increased from 10 a week in January. The volumes became so high that we had to call in the help of Homeless Project and ask them to make some deliveries for us. With a view that the need for our services is only going to get higher in coming months and considering the demands that we are making on volunteers and their vehicles we have received Trustee approval to purchase our own van and hope to have this shortly. We’ll keep you updated on progress.
Alma Road
The Trustees of WCA have signed a 20-year lease for the premises formerly known as “The Alma Road Social Club”. The building is to be totally renovated and hopefully by the Autumn it will be up and running. It will be used by all four charities associated with WCA, The Homeless Project, More than a Shelter, and Street Angels, as well as ourselves. Whilst we are keeping our main distribution centre at DGBC we are considering the possibility of having another distribution centre, on a different day at Alma Road. No firm plans have yet been made
Amazon
We trialled an Amazon wish list at the beginning of March initially the wish list was set up so as the donations would be delivered to the Church – when we were open. Sadly, Amazon didn’t quite get this, and delivered, and delivered, and delivered, even when there was no-one there. We are pleased to have rectified this and now deliveries go to Malcolm Court, who delivers them every week. It seems to have worked well as since we started, we have received over £2,800 of goods, including £500 worth of Easter eggs, mostly from one donor. Apologies to Matthew and the staff at DGBC who were forever rescuing our deliveries from the pouring rain. If you haven’t yet seen it the wish list can be found by clicking here.
Appointments
As a result of our last call for help, Paul Skinner, has now stepped forward and is undertaking the Secretariat role for the Steering Committee, as well has helping Jean Shepherd with Grant Applications.
Carrier Bags
We’re eternally short of carrier bags, if you have any, please do bring them along on a Wednesday or a Thursday. We are hoping to encourage our clients to return the bags they get each week or bring their own bags. If you are a delivery driver it would be great if you could ask the recipients to unpack the bags when you deliver and then bring them back.
Cash Collection Tins
We still have several collection tins, that are ready to be left with shops, offices, schools, churches, if you know of anywhere that they could go to, please do let us know
Change of Operation at Foodshare
At the beginning of March, we started offering the clients the opportunity to have more choice in the collection of food. They were given a check list of foods they could choose from, rather than a pre-packed bag of non-perishables. It seems to have worked well, and our stocks of pasta and rice, are much higher than they would have been. We are now considering rolling this out to the monthly toiletries.
Corporate Donations and Charity of Choice
We have in the past been fortunate enough to receive cash donations from local companies. If you have any contacts that might be interested in making regular financial donations, or choosing us as the Charity their employees support, please do pass the details on.
Facebook / Instagram / Twitter
If you haven’t already, could you find us, like us, and follow us, on all these 😊
Grant Applications
This month Jean was successful in a Grant Application with the Prince Phillip Trust, they have awarded us £3,000 which will be used to provide a bottle of cooking oil each month to our clients. Thank you, Jean, for all your efforts.
New Weekly Extras
Considering the donation received from The Prince Phillip Trust, we reviewed the foods we gave out. We now rotate the extras to include:
Week One
Tomato Ketchup, Brown Sauce, or Mayonnaise/Salad Cream Bottled Squash / Cartons of Juice
Week Two
Coffee and Sugar
Week Three
Cooking Oil and Jam/Marmalade/Honey
Week Four
Gravy Granules & Bottled Squash / Juice