Norwich foodbank: Update 209, 25 October

Hello everyone, what a lovely sunny autumnal week we’ve had 

Thanks to many of you for replying and offering to help – all slots are filled! The shop opened last week and it must be going well as we’ve already re-stocked twice!  Thank you to the warehouse Monday team for their help with choosing the designs 

Further to our visit from the Bishop of Norwich, the Diocese have created a short film combining all the Bishop+foodbank visits (Yarmouth, Kings Lynn and Norwich) and if are interested you can watch here 

We have confirmed the dates and times for our upcoming collections at Waitrose and Tesco. If you are able to help, please fill in the survey (one for each supermarket). We have been told in the past if you use an iphone, sometimes it won’t allow you to respond so please do email Jon cc’d and let him know what you are able to do and he can fill it in on your behalf

Also to update you, at the recent Asda collection we received over 400kg and just over £230 in financial gifts – again, thank you to all involved on the days!

It has been marvellous to see the warehouse filling up over Harvest season with several large collections from schools and churches, (not to mention the Theatre, see below) really boosting our stocks. We’ve seen donations from Langley, Notre Dame and Dussindale schools this week alone and this, combined with the regular giving through supermarkets and individuals, means we’re in a good position stock-wise which is great. On the school front especially, Sprowston Pupil Ambassadors have resumed their termly visits, with thanks to Peter for helping. One funny comment from a child who packed a food parcel was ‘I like to think they have not only got food in here, but also my DNA!’  The deputy head who brought the group said ‘As usual, the children were chatting about the visit all the way back to school and can’t wait to come back. The Pupil Ambassadors are planning to do an assembly to launch a [school-wide] collection after the half-term holiday.’

A big thank you to those of you who have helped out at the Theatre Royal pre-show collections over the last fortnight. We received 9 crates of donations on the opening night and multiple crates every night since – 28 crates across Friday and Saturday shows! We have also had loads of very positive feedback from theatre-goers about us being there and the collection points being possible so we hope we will be able to do something similar again soon. It has also been really kind of the theatre to give us free tickets to the show, following the pre-show collection. Everyone with a ticket had information the week and day before to remind them of our presence; you can read the article here that went out to all ticket-holders. One supporter made national press as she has followed the UK tour and generated donations wherever the show has gone! For us, Lydia and friends brought 2 car loads of donations; you can read the article about her here

I had the pleasure of speaking at two events in the past week – one was the Wroxham and Hoveton U3A (University of the Third Age) gathering and one was the NCBC ladies breakfast; both of which seemed to be well received! I left both with a car full of donations, more people informed about what we do and why and some lovely words of encouragement from old friends I’d not seen for a while. One such friend reminded me that when the opportunity for this job came up, I had asked for prayer and support and she was one of those who had encouraged me to apply – to see me still here and enjoying it (!) many years on was an encouragement to both of us!

A couple of weeks ago, NCBC had a pretty quiet 75 minutes, then 11 vouchers in the last 15 minutes of the session! On top of all that, it transpired it was the birthday of one of the adults receiving their food parcel. He was in quite a bad way medically and emotionally and having to ask for food on his birthday of all days was clearly impacting him. One of our partners wrote to me saying ‘The volunteers arranged for a couple of small but lovely gifts of cakes and chocolates for him and his wife. The impact was as emotional as you can imagine. Yet again, this was a special moment I felt honoured to be a part of.’ Thank you team and another great example of how we are helping the whole person and not just being transactional in our service. Amazing!

Hannah