Tuesday 11 May 2010

An amazing two weeks!

I can't believe where the time has gone since I last blogged! Only two weeks, but so much has happened in this time that I don't know where to start.

It has certainly been extremely busy. Our last two serving sessions at Milton Keynes Christian Centre have seen 76 food parcels given out. The other centres have also been very busy and all together The Food Bank has given out 1385 parcels to date in 2010.

On 30th April, Judith Evans from Guinness Midsummer visited The Food Bank and awarded us £2000 towards the set-up and running costs of our new warehouse. This was greatly appreciated and will go to support our exciting expansion programme which will enable us to better serve our community.

Sunday 2nd May was Food Bank Sunday at MKCC where our congregation focused on 6 main items to help re-balance our stock and also gave a financial donation to help support the service. The day was a great success with plenty of food donations and £670 in financial donations.

Last Saturday, 8th May, was our first Food Bank Open Day at the new warehouse. We were open for just 4 hours, but during that time almost 80 people came to see what we do and to learn more about our vision for expansion in order to better serve our community.
Some of our younger visitors helped our volunteers to make up some food parcels in readiness for our Monday serving session and also took part in a short quiz.

During the open day, Sainsbury's (Central Milton Keynes) Store Manager Nick Wynne presented The Food Bank with a cheque for £1000 - which was totally unexpected but very much appreciated! This amount represents the last of the fund raising from the period when Food Bank were their local Charity of the Year. It has been a truly great year with Sainsbury's and I cannot thank Nick and his team enough for their support in so many ways.

We now hope that we will again be nominated for a second year so please cast your vote in store before next Wednesday 19th May.