The ‘Reverse’ Advent Calendar is a simple concept; instead of a calendar where you open a door to a chocolate or picture, you give instead. Each day during advent you put aside a food donation so, by the end of December, you have a collection of goods ready to drop off to your local Foodbank.
Creating a ‘Reverse’ Advent Calendar can be great activity for a family, showing children the importance of helping others and showing the bigger picture at Christmas. It can also be a useful for an office or business to do as an alternative to ‘Secret Santa’, each member of staff bringing in an item for the Reverse Advent Calendar instead.
All you need to create a Reverse Advent Calendar is a box and a list of suitable items that your local foodbank needs – links to our list of most needed items are shown below.
The important thing to understand with Reverse Advent Calendars, and any giving to Foodbanks at Christmas, is whether you wish to donate seasonal items or not. If seasonal items are to be donated Stratford Foodbank would be grateful to receive them by Wednesday December 4th so we can make full use of them before Christmas. So, if you are making a Reverse Advent Calendar, you may wish to start earlier than December 1st. We do need food donations after December 4th – it’s just they are likely to be distributed to clients after Christmas. So seasonal items will be less useful.
To help with putting together a Reverse Advent Calendar we have created a guide for you (link to printable guide shown below). It includes an Advent Calendar with food donation ideas that you can put in your Reverse Advent Calendar box.
Reverse Advent Calendar Suggestions
For information on Reverse Advent Calendar suggestions click here.
Most Wanted For Christmas (donate by 4th Dec)
For a full list of items that we are using in the run up to Christmas, including our Community Hamper work click here – remember seasonal items should be with us by Wed Dec 4th please.
Most Wanted Throughout December
For a list of items suitable for donations throughout December (i.e. this list will not include seasonal items and may be used after Christmas) please click here
Guide to Donating to the Foodbank
For a guide about how to donate to the Foodbank, including details of all our collection points and how to deliver to our warehouse click heere
