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.

Sue Adkins Last Day!

Yesterday saw the final day for our Team Leader Sue Adkins, who has sadly had to give up her role due to family commitments.

Sue has been our Team Leader, on a voluntary basis, for the last two years and has been involved in the amazing expansion that we have seen over that time. Sue spent much of her time working in our old sea container which was not a pleasant place to work at all - hot in the summer and freezing cold in the winter. Sue was also there through thick and thin with the snowy weather for the last two winters - pushing trolleys across a snow covered carpark!

Sue helped with the move to our new warehouse and has been instrumental in helping get the whole operation at Stacey Bushes up and running.

The whole team pooled together and gave her a good send off with a spoof Emergency Box full of all the food items she really does not like, but also a pamper box with some very nice goodies and some vouchers for Whittlebury Hall Spa.

Sue will certainly be greatly missed by all those who volunteer at The Food Bank and we all wish her every happiness in whatever life has in store.

Thanks Sue

The BIG little Give & our Vision Team

Last night was the first meeting of our newly formed Vision Team. The team is made up of a real mix of people from different backgrounds, ages and cultures but all of whom have a passion to help The Food Bank serve our local community.

It was a GREAT meeting!!!!

The Vision Team are focussing on planning our big event - The BIG little Give - which will take place between 21st - 27th March 2011. The aim of the event is to encourage every household in Milton Keynes to donate one item from the Food Bank shopping list.

Local donation points will be set up accross the city to make it easy for everyone to donate locally. There will also be many other events running during the week so hopefully there will be something that will appeal to everyone to encourage them to take part and support The Food Bank.

Full details will appear on our website shortly but if you would like to join a great team to help organise a great event then e-mail Sue on thefoodbank@mkcc.org.uk or call on 01908 322800

Thank you Shenley Brook End & Tattenhoe Parish Council

Last night The Food Bank presented a grant application to Shenley Brook End & Tattenhoe Parish Council requesting their support to help continue to fund our essential service whilst we strive to make ourselves sustainable.

Fantastic news - the Grant application for £1500 was approved - THANK YOU!

This is the second time that Shenley Brook End & Tattenhoe PC have supported The Food Bank. Last year they also assisted with initial funding to help us raise the money to take on our warehouse. The following Parish Councils also assisted at this time:

• Campbell Park PC
• Bradwell PC
• New Bradwell PC
• Woughton PC
• Bradwell Abbey PC
• Stony Stratford Town Council
• Stantonbury PC
• Great Linford PC
• Bletchley & Fenny Stratford Town Council

West Bletchley Parish Council have also supported The Food Bank this year with a donation to fund 100 food parcels for local people.

It is great that the Parish Councils are willing to support our work as The Food Bank provides an essential service to residents within every Parish in the Milton Keynes area.

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

Woburn Sands Co-op

Last weekend Brian Kirkland - manager of the Woburn Sands Co-op, invited The Food Bank back to hold a second supermarket collection on the 7th / 8th August. This followed the first very successful collection in April this year.

The collection point was manned by volunteers - many of them living in the Woburn / Woburn Sands area. Our volunteers offered the Co-op customers a Food Bank shopping list as they entered the store and invited them to help by buying one extra item as they shopped from our shopping list. 4 items were highlighted as being those most urgently needed to balance our stocks - tinned tuna, dried rice, jam and sugar. In just two 5 hours sessions, the Co-op customers donated a massive 406 separate items which was a fantastic increase on the collection in April and many were the items we most desperately needed!

Brian has kindly invited us back for another two day collection on 4th/5th December. Thanks a million to Brian, all his staff, customers and not forgetting our faithful volunteers who made the day such a success!