January 2018 Newsletter
We hope you had a very Merry Christmas and a happy new year! As Christmas closed in, the Foodbank was as busy as could be passing the 16,000th parcel delivered and now having passed the 17,000th parcel milestone. We’ve seen success again this year with the reverse advent calendars with a flood of generous donations and as usual Harvest Festival brought a tide of donations from schools and Churches. Thank you everyone for your continued support as it makes all the difference, particularly at a time when Universal Credit difficulties are causing stress and upset for so many.
Goodbye, farewell!
We said goodbye to Mark Gowland. He’s the one in the hoody(!) With Alfie begging him to stay! Mark has left us to start his school teaching career. He has volunteered full time for over a year now and he will be dearly missed not only for his charm, cheek & loveliness but also for the graft he does too. Who’s going to reach the top shelves now? Thank you Mark, you will be greatly missed but a great future is in store for you.
Proctor and Gamble
They continue to show us support with donations, vanloads and staff days to come and help us sort donations. Thank you so much for your help, our clients appreciate it and so do we!
The Continuing Mission of Dave Gordon
Dave Gordon continues to bring in fresh veg from the allotments. Thank you so much for your work Dave!
A little bit of love
An ex-client showed his appreciation by shopping for Christmas gifts for our current and future clients. When you’ve been there you know how it feels. We’re so privileged to see people getting back on their feet and being able to help others.
Harvest Festival
Thank you to all the schools and churches that donated to the Foodbank for the harvest festival. That includes: Wallsend Jubilee School, Longbenton Methodist Church, St Bartholomew’s in Longbenton, Amberley Primary School, Cragside Primary School and Kings Priory School, Trinity Academy, Benton Dene Primary School, Kings Priory School, Forest Hall Primary, Marine Park School, Woodlawn School, Amberley Primary School, Greenfields Primary School, and Elaine from Fordley Primary School for all your wonderful Harvest Festival donations – we really do appreciate your kind thoughts and support, it will all go to help feed people in need. A special thank you to the many members of staff from all the schools who have organised these collections and brought in the donations.
Sainsburys
Huge thank you to Sainsbury customers, staff and friends for all food, toys, chocolate, toiletries donated to us. Once again, we were blown away with the generosity shown!
Nissan
On a very busy weekend, we had some hard working volunteers from Nissan to help us sort/date and stack the huge amount of donations from Sainsbury’s. That was of course after they sorted and dated the very big, very full van of donations from Nissan. Thank you all
16,000th and 17,000th parcel milestones
It is both inspiring and sad to have reached these amounts. It is so important that as long as there is a need that we continue to fill that need, we just want to see the day that this is no longer necessary.
And finally…
Have a merry Christmas everyone and thank you so much for your continued support and interest in the Bay Foodbank!
Thank you from every one of us at The BAY Foodbank.