Norwich Foodbank: Update 230

Good morning everyone! Hope you’re staying hydrated and as cool as possible… It’s a blessing at this time of year that our centres are mainly in churches which are usually (and I know it’s not always!) on the cooler side, but I’m painfully aware that the warehouse literally has a hot tin roof …!

Supported by some of you lovely lot, we spent the day at NORJAM yesterday and we are there again today – plenty of water to hand! – to engage with the young people and their leaders attending this massive Scout and Guide event. We want to encourage support (one-off or ongoing) and engage them in several different activities which Rachel has put together to entertain, challenge and inform. One standout comment from yesterday included a conversation between two scouts, one who said she knew how to cook a meal from scratch and was surprised when her friend said she didn’t know; when asked ‘didn’t your mum teach you?’ the friend’s response was ‘no, she works, she’s too busy.’ We also noticed that for the ‘make a meal for £5’ challenge, the majority included a cucumber – is that a staple food item for a teenager these days…? We’re looking forward to today and more chats and thoughts from the children and leaders, as well as welcoming their leftovers – we have already received 3 crates filled with pot noodles, tuna, UHT milk and crisps!

Saturday 2nd (the day after the last update) was quite a busy day! Alongside our team at Chantry who operate week in week out on Saturdays, Katherine and I were joined by volunteers throughout the day, manning our stall at the Norwich Yoga Festival as the charity partner. We were incredibly grateful to borrow Waveney’s gazebo and we tested our new feather flag banners (see attached). We made connections within the first hour with Kraken Bakes who make gluten and dairy free tray-bakes – they not only offered (and gave!) us their leftover cakes, but also promised future cake-based support  We had a fitness studio offer to have a permanent foodbank collection for their clients to support and know from relationships with various gyms over the years that this can work really well. We received food and financial gifts throughout the day and had some great conversations with people about our work; thanks to all involved pre, during and post!

After setting up at Whitlingham, a few of us then hot-footed to the Norfolk Showground to collect a van and car loads of leftovers from the New Day festival (which hosted 10,000 young people during the week). We could have taken more, but time and space constraints meant we stopped at 4 vehicles  We got a lot of cereal, including the variety multi-packs which are great, spreads, biscuits, pasta sauce and we also took some bread and fruit for immediate distribution.

The last thing in this busy day was getting official photos done of the new permanent match-day collection point at Carrow Road   This was shared in the fan news ahead of the first match of the new season and we look forward to seeing not only the results of the team  but of the donations that get brought on match days! Alongside this, is a new permanent collection point open at all times at The NEST which is great!

As I often say, I know there’ll be many MANY more stories like this that I’m not aware of, so sharing the ones I get told  The very supportive Shez – Community Champion at Tesco Blue Boar – called us to say ‘a lovely man just gave me £200 to buy food for you!’ He wanted it to be anonymous, so we gave our heartfelt thanks that she will pass on and she promptly bought bits from our most needed list on his behalf.