Last week, the food bank in Rye received an amazing 1,000 kilos of food donations and a substantial number of generous financial gifts too. Many of these were Christmas orientated and were truly very meaningful. They were from local individuals and businesses, all helping to ensure that families and those on their own would have a brighter Christmas in these dark financial times. It would be impossible to name them all, but Bob at the food bank said they were so welcome and so encouraging, and on behalf of the whole food bank team offers a huge thank you to everyone.
The approach to giving was delightfully creative. For example, a group in Northiam ran a “reverse Advent”, and collected nearly 500kg of food – which they then delivered to the food bank amongst the snow and ice! There were several donations of takings from raffles and other events.
The staff of Winchelsea Co-op generously donated a substantial load of food and Christmas treats. Each member of staff had donated cash to a kitty to purchase the donation, pictured below as Devon, a member of the Co-op staff, handed over their gift to John Gurney who was collecting on behalf of the food bank.
W Tolletts, a building firm from Rye, decided to do something different this year at Christmas. They said: “Each year we send out a Christmas cards to our customers. However with the current financial situation making things so hard for many people we felt the money would be better spent making a real difference in our local community.
“The increased use of food banks has been in the news regularly and affecting many people, so we contacted the Rye Foodbank to see if we could help them. The food bank supports local families with the everyday essentials on weekly basis, and we decided to provide some Christmas treats for families for the festive season and soften the burden that it may bring financially.
“We employ 17 people directly at Tolletts, all local lads and ladies, and we decided to provide one festive parcel for each employee. It’s a small gesture which we hope can make a big difference.”
I asked Bob how people could help in future, “We greatly value every input, whether of food or finance, and whether regular or occasional. But donations of money are certainly very helpful because we can then buy exactly the food items we need each week and keep stock turning over. That’s important as demand goes up but storage space remains the same. It also allows us to take advantage of the discounted prices we enjoy, which makes everyone’s money go further.”
Image Credits: W Tolletts , Katie Gurney .