Norwich foodbank: Update 214

It’s 2025 – happy new year to you all! Whether you have had a busy, quiet or mixed couple of weeks, I hope you are entering 2025 feeling refreshed and with hope.

2025 

2025 is Norwich foodbank’s 15th anniversary so we’ll be reflecting back, looking forwards and sharing our collective ‘achievements’ and learnings throughout our years of serving. We have several events planned including a get-together of various faith groups across the city, another for our referral agencies, visits to other Norfolk foodbanks and a first-ever meeting of people we have got to know who have lived experience of using a foodbank. All these perspectives will help us learn from what others are doing, shape and develop our core and additional services, solidify ideas for local campaigning and edge closer to realising our vision of seeing an end to the need for foodbanks.

Christmas Busyness

We often find December is our busiest month for both donations and demand and this year was no exception. In the week before Christmas, with all 11 centres, warehouse and 2 delivery sites open, we fulfilled 171 vouchers, amounting to 366 people receiving food. The week before (commencing 9th December) we fulfilled 136 vouchers for 302 people. Last week, 5 centres were open – thank you especially to NCBC for opening on a different day Across the week, 33 vouchers were fulfilled helping 91 people receive food. We haven’t yet got all the data on donations coming in, but it was such a joy to see crates in both warehouse units filled with donations, waiting to be weighed in, sorted and packed throughout December. Thank you to all who did a shift in the warehouse, office, at home on the phones or data entry, distribution centres and driving – there was a LOT to be done in December and as far as I know (!) it all got done! In the words of Malcolm, ‘people got fed’ which is the most important bit when it comes down to it. I know for some people, the structure or routine is helpful and for others, giving time and energy is entirely second nature but it really is appreciated when there are so many other demands on our time. Thank you.

BookBank

This is too late for Christmas presents but if you are buying books with Christmas money, do think about buying through Books That Give – a partnership between Bookshop.org and  the Independent Alliance of publishers. It’s raising money for Bookbanks, so if you buy one of the 30 selected titles through the Bookshop.org website, 10% of the profits are donated directly to Bookbanks. We spotted this this feedback for Bowthorpe site, on the national website: ‘volunteers sourced copies of two particular puzzle books for a young teen, with a passion for maths, who is going through a rough spell ‘

Donation

We received a lovely donation from Bawburgh Golf Club following the winner of a golf day (apologies if the language is wrong, I’m not a golfer!) who donated his winnings to us – what a lovely gesture! We also had a generous gift from a lady at a local church who is no longer able to attend on a Sunday and take donations, but still wants to support us so donates money via a friend.

FREE PANTO TICKETS

We have been offered free tickets for the pantomime at Norwich Theatre Royal, for THIS Saturday 4th January at 7.30pm and Sunday 5th January at 5pm. These will be offered to clients at the Friday and Saturday centres too, but we have been told any volunteer /staff are welcome to take advantage of this too. You can book a ticket online Aladdin Panto and when you go to checkout / pay enter one or other code: Saturday tickets aladd1n or Sunday tickets freeteamtix and please note its a 6 ticket limit per household.

GOOD NEWS

We received this text during last week from a client we had helped, which I took a screenshot of and attach for you to see We also helped a client on Christmas Eve with a food parcel and referral to Fuel Bank Foundation for energy support, as he was down to £2 on his meter: ‘Thank you so much, my client is deeply grateful as he would have had a miserable Christmas without electric and gas so please accept my sincerest gratitude.’ And I thought the attached picture saying ‘how did I help you’ speaks volumes about how, once again, not just the physical support of food / energy / toiletries is the bit that makes the difference.

Thanks everyone and have a good Friday.

Hannah