Once again, NFU Mutual have come up trumps for Stratford on Avon Foodbank.
Kieron Thompson from the Finance department said,
“We were upset by hearing of stories in the press about the demand for foodbanks increasing during the summer holidays. This prompted us to quickly arrange a collection across our finance division. Whilst there were a lot of staff on holiday at the time, we received some very generous donations. There was also the option of donating cash, with a colleague shopping for food on their behalf.”
Following some research on the Foodbank’s website to see what goods were most needed, Kieron organised an appeal with the setting up of collection points across their finance departments. Using A4 posters from a Foodbank template (you can see our current most wanted poster here) they collected a very generous amount of food donations, delivering them to our warehouse for distribution to the people most in need in our local area. To date this year, NFU have collected 239kgs of food, which equates to a monetary value of £418. This follows hot on the heels of last year’s fantastic donations to the Foodbank equalling a total of 587 kgs, the equivalent of £1,027.
Beth Pritchard, Corporate Social Responsibility Consultant at NFU Mutual commented: “NFU Mutual staff members have experienced some wonderful volunteering days with Stratford Foodbank, principally helping with their Food Drive events. It’s a cause which really resonates with our employees, and we feel very proud to give our support. Food and warmth our are most basic of needs, so to have a volunteering day where you can give such practical support to our local community is extremely engaging and rewarding. They key objective for our employee volunteering programme is for staff to experience teambuilding day where they make a difference, and our days with Stratford Foodbank have certainly delivered on this.”
We are especially grateful to NFU Mutual for their considerable support for our Foodbank; not only have they held food collections at their offices, but they have also supplied a steady stream of corporate volunteers who have helped at our food drives, as well as with other essential jobs, such as spring cleaning the cabins.
Food donations are always very welcome, and much appreciated from all sources. Businesses can support the Foodbank in a couple of ways: either by setting up a one-off collection point or becoming a regular collection point. Once food has been collected, then it is just a matter of arranging for the food to be delivered to our warehouse. If your business would like to know more about how you can help us, then please email [email protected] and we will be happy to provide you with further information about how you could enhance your role as a corporate and socially responsible company.
Should food collections sound like too much of a headache, then we are always grateful for financial support. We would love to hear from any businesses who are looking to develop a charity partnership to raise funds for. The Foodbank is keen to raise funds for their soon-to-be new home, within the old Fred Winters establishment. You can donate via our just giving page here.
To see our current list of most wanted items this harvest time click here
Food donations can be left in our many collection points at Tesco’s, Waitrose, Morrisons, Sainsbury’s on Bridge Street, the Co-op on Trinity Meade, , Stratford Leisure Centre, and Budgens at Bidford.
Donations can also be bought direct to our warehouse on Tesco’s carpark at specific times – to find our when click here