An exciting few days!

Last Friday 2nd September, The Food Bank in partnership with Jesus Celebration Centre, opened its 5th serving centre in Milton Keynes!

Working out of the JCC building at Lloyds Court in CMK, the new centre will provide a collection point for clients to redeem their Food Bank vouchers on a Friday afternoons between 2pm - 4pm.

The other Food Bank Centres are at Milton Keynes Christian Centre in Oldbrook on a Monday and Thursday, CrossLinks on the Lakes Estate on a Tuesday and Friday, New Life Church North at Wolverton Mill South on a Wednesday and St Georges Church, Wolverton Town on a Saturday.

On Saturday, we had a stand at the celebration of arts and culture in Campbell Park which was organised by the Milton Keynes Islamic Arts and Culture Organisation. The event was about building bridges between diverse communities and celebrating the things we have in common. The day was well attended and I met many interesting people and made some useful contacts.

The same evening local group TesTament, held a Music and Message event as a fund raiser for The Food Bank at Christchurch Stantonbury. The guest speakers were from the Christian Motorcycle Association, a very interesting group who use their hobby to spread the word. The evening was well attended and everyone enjoyed some great music, inspirational speaking and excellent refreshments! A big thank you to Mike and the crew for making this possible.

What a fantastic start to the BIG little Give! Last weekend we had a supermarket collection at Woburn Sands Co-op on Saturday and Sunday and collected an amazing 452 items of food! Brian Kirkland - manager of the Co-op has been extremely supportive of The Food Bank, this being the fifth time that we have been invited to have a supermarket collection. A massive THANK YOU to Brian and his great staff and all our volunteers who made the weekend possible.

Sunday afternoon saw four young ladies from Stewkley Methodist Church cooking pancakes for the village - all to support The Food Bank. When we arrived there were at least 60 people enjoying pancakes with a variety of fillings - so well done Ella, Neve, Hannah & Rachel.

Today has also been an amazing day with an interview for BBC Three Counties Radio at 7.15am and Anglia TV at 11.30am! All great publicity opportunities for The Food Bank. The Anglia News item is expected to go out on Wednesday. BBC3CR are also hoping to interview children at one of the schools who are supporting the BIG little Give so watch this space for further updates.

The Food Bank also had the Community Zone stand in Middleton Hall today with the stand being manned by Clive and a succession of volunteers to help out. This was a great opportunity for people to see a display about the work of The Food Bank and to raise awareness. Thanks to all those who took part today - without our great volunteers these events would not be possible!

All together a fantastic start to the BIG little Give!

BIG little Give - One week to go!

I can't believe we are now just one week away from The Food Bank's first BIG little Give!

The name is significant - BIG, because we want everyone to take part - little because we are only asking each person to donate just one tin!

The success of the event has now become absolutely crucial for The Food Bank, as the demand for our service has doubled in the first two months of this year leaving us with desperately low stocks.

Check out the website to see what events are taking place and how you can be part of something BIG!

Music & Message

Last Saturday the Music & Message Team held their latest event at Netherfield Chapel as a fund raiser for The Food Bank.

The evening was a great success despite the horrible weather, with good music from TesTamenT, an interesting talk by guest speaker Jessica Hall from Christian Aid, all kept under control by Tim Norwood!

Thank you Mike and the team for a great evening that will really help support the work of The Food Bank.

Ramadan Collection by Zainabiya Islamic Centre

Last Saturday saw the delivery of an amazing amount of food that was collected by the Zainabiya Islamic Centre at Granby during Ramadan.

I was invited along at the start of Ramadan to do a short talk about the work of The Food Bank in one of their services. Arnie and I were both made to feel most welcome and were invited to share in the meal that was prepared for everyone after sundown.

Zainab, who works as part of the youth group for the Mosque made all the arrangements for my original talk and also arranged for a group of their young ladies to come along last Saturday to deliver the food and help sort the donations and make up food parcels. I really enjoyed meeting everyone and learning a little more about Ramadan and the Eid celebrations.

It is great that the work of The Food Bank can cut through any artificial boundaries of politics or religion and that we can all unite behind a common cause - to fight hunger and to make sure that nobody in our city goes to be hungry.

Our new Fridge Freezer!

Today The Food Bank took delivery of a fantastic Bosch Fridge Freezer, courtesy of local company BSH Home Applicances Ltd.

The fridge/ freezer will be greatly appreciated by our many volunteers who give their time so freely working in our warehouse. It will also give us the opportunity of taking in the occasional donation that requires refrigeration or freezing, which in the past we have had to turn away.

It seems quite ironic that in the last 7 days we have had our gas blower heating installed in the warehouse to heat us up and a fridge freezer to keep things cool!

Many thanks to my contact Zelia Pittam at BSH who made this possible!

A Busy Few Weeks!

The beginning of September has been a busy but productive time for The Food Bank.

Since the 1st September, I have presented to 3 Parish Councils, all of which have been kind enough to provide funding to help support our essential running costs - so a big THANK YOU to the following Parish / Town councils:


Walton Parish Council,







Bradwell Parish Council









Wolverton & Greenleys Town Council. This maintains our 100% record of support from Parishes accross MK.





We have also had some great press coverage in both the MK News and the Citizen. The Citizen will be running an article each week for 4 weeks on the run up to the Mercedes-Benz supported Food collection in Midsummer Place on 1st / 2nd October.

Thankfully Harvest Festival is just around the corner and again The Food Bank has been busy with school assemblies and talks in Church Services. Volunteer Helen Dray, did her first Church Service talk last Sunday at Mursely Church and today did her first assembly at Stoke Goldington CE First School - so well done Helen!

The demand is completely outsripping supply at the moment with 2733 food parcels given out already this year - 50% up on the same period last year. Our stocks are really very low so the injection of food that will come in as a result of Harvest Festival is very much needed.

We also had our warehouse heater installed this week - you probably heard the large shout of HOORAY from our volunteers!

This has been made possible by a grant from the Milton Keynes Community Foundation and a generous private donation.

That's all for now folks - keep watching this space for more Food Bank news.