Monday 12th April- our last bagging day in the Sea container

Monday 12th April was a historic day - it was the last day that we will ever make food parcels up in the Sea Container.

Helen did us all proud by bringing in balloons, signs and a very lovely home baked chocolate cake to mark the occasion.

It was certainly a very busy day with food parcels made up for CrossLinks, New Life Church, 10 emergency boxes for the MK Floating Support Team as well as bags for our own serving session.

The sea container has been a real blessing to The Food Bank for the last few years as it has given us the space to operate from and I am very grateful to George Ridley and LightForce International for letting us use their space. However I am sure I speak for all our volunteers when I say that we will not miss it for too long when we move into the fantastic space of our new warehouse!

Watch this space for further updates!

I can't believe where the time has gone since I last blogged!

Arnie & I went out to Uganda for most of February with LightForce International (the international missions arm of our Church) and had an amazing time carrying out surveys with the local community on the service provided by their health centres. We look forward to returning in January 2011.

Since returning, so much has happened at The Food Bank that my feet have barely touched the ground.

On 1st March we took delivery of our new vehicle - a Mercedes Sprinter - only made possible by a joint sponsorship deal with Mortgage Rescue Network and Mercedes Benz. As you can see from the photos the vehicle is absolutely fantastic!

We have also made great headway in getting the racking installed at the warehouse and we now plan to move in on 13th April.

It will be so wonderful to have some space to work in after so long in the sea container!

I do plan to blog more regularly now so do watch this space.

What a fantastic month!

When I last blogged, I mentioned that I was going to see some racking that Sainsbury's were donating to us. Since then the racking - which turned out to be fantastic supermarket shelving - has been delivered. I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw the size of the truck that delivered it! Altogether we have 16 pallets of racking which will be assembled early March with our hope to have the warehouse up and running by early April.

This month has also seen a wonderful joint sponsorship by Mortgage Rescue Network (Part of the Rapid Property Group) and Mercedes-Benz. This relationship will provide the funding and ongoing servicing / maintenance for a 57 plate Mercedes Sprinter van which will enable us to start our Mobile Food Bank. All being well we will take delivery of the vehicle on 1st March - watch this space for further updates.

I certainly hope that February is as exciting!

Racking

I am so excited! At the end of last year Sainsbury's very kindly offered to help us by donating some racking that we can use in our warehouse and said that it would be available in the middle of January.

Well that time has now come - and tomorrow I am heading up the motorway to sunny Longridge (although it is probably more like snowy Longridge!) to see what they have available and to decide what we need.

The racking is absolutely essential to us as once it is in place, we can then move our storage and packing operation to the warehouse which will be fantastic!

Here's hoping that there's no more snow tonight and a clear run up the M6!

A Belated Happy New Year!

Where has the time gone! I just can't believe that it is 11th January already!

The Food Bank certainly had a very busy December with many local companies, schools, Churches and individuals holding special Christmas food collections resulting in a wonderful influx of stock. Many thanks to all those who contributed.

The Food Bank also managed to get 98 Christmas Hampers sponsored which made a massive difference to those families who received one.

By the end of 2009 The Food Bank had given out 3104 food parcels to local people. Sadly the need in our city continues to rise and 2010 has started out very busy.

The cold weather has put an added strain on everyone. Thankfully, despite all the snow, we have been able to open on each of our serving days which is entirely down to the willingness of our fantastic team of volunteers.

We have a really exicting year ahead of us with the prosepct of getting our warehouse up and running and also starting a mobile food bank - so watch this space for further updates.

Stay warm and safe

What an amazing evening!

Last night we held the first Food Bank Conference, where we brought together all of our regular volunteers from the four Food Bank Centres, along with our Trustees and some of our key Sponsors.
It was a great evening, which gave people the opportunity to meet for the first time, share their experiences, hear reports from the four centres and also to hear about The Food Banks vision for the future.
The evening wouldn't have been half as successful had it not been for Judy Baird and Beverley Seale who cooked the most wonderful Indian buffet and their army of helpers who provided such wonderful service during the evening - thank you so much!
From the feedback received, everyone enjoyed the evening and I certainly plan to make this an annual event.
I will be posting further pictures of the evening on our new website which will be launched later this week, so watch this space!
Have a great day!

What a busy day - my e-mail has been on fire!

We have had so many needy families nominated for Christmas Hampers by our referral agencies, that we are now hoping to complete 94 against our original target of 50!
This has only been made possible by the amazing support of many local Churches, schools, companies and individuals who all want to make a less fortunate families Christmas extra special.

Wouldn't it be great if we could do 100!

I had a great meeting today with Wendy from the Black Country Food Bank - we were able to share best practice and learn from each other. Wendy is also kindly going to donate us some jam (which we are always short of) some trifle mixes and cranberry sauce which we can give out at Christmas Time.

I also met with a lovely chap called Graham from the DWP, who was able to enlighten me on the various aspects of Crisis & Budget loans which are available which was most useful. Graham is also keen to volunteer with The Food Bank in his spare time which is awesome!

I am off now to cook a prawn chilli - which is most unusual for me as I am no cook!

Bye for now!