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!

The Food Bank's first blog entry!

This is quite a momentous day in many ways, firstly it is the first time I have ever "blogged"and it is the first entry ever on The Food Bank's blog!

Secondly, I am pleased to say that the response to The Food Bank Christmas Hamper Project 2009 has been amazing! We had originally aimed to do 50 hampers to help local families at Christmas time - however I am now pleased to say that we will be able to do 87 hampers! This is truly awesome and will really make a massive difference to these families at Christmas time.

Yesterday, Arnie and I went along to the Woburn Sands Carnival, where, the Woburn Sands & Villages Churches Together team had a stand supporting the work of The Food Bank. Whilst the weather was grim, the response from the people was great and we were able to speak to many people about our work. We also collected just under £34 cash and took in some food donations which was a real bonus. Many thanks to Rev Chris Batten and the rest of the team for organising this.

I do plan to update this blog in a regular basis so please do follow the exciting exploits of The Food Bank!

Together we really can make a difference.....

Sue