The Christmas Foodbank Campaign Officially starts today.

Today's the day!!!!!


Well there you have it, today's the day that my Christmas Foodbank Campaign for Woking Foodbank officially gets underway to help people in crisis.  I seriously cannot believe where this year has gone, but to those people that are in crisis, Christmas is probably the last thing on their mind and indeed its the time of the year when we are all under so much pressure to be happy, but if you don't have the simple things in life, like food how is that ever going to be possible?

I have actually already been receiving cash donations which will enable me or more importantly my mum to go out and do some food shopping, my mum is great she is so frugal she gets all the bargains which means that those food parcels will go even further and plus she has far more time than me and its about all the family getting involved in whatever way possible and this is my mum's way of getting involved, its great she loves it, to be honest I loath food shopping, but sometimes you have to do the things that you dislike, right?

My first food parcel arrived last week, would you like to see what was in it? would you? I bet you would, oh go on then, but this is the one and only time that I will be showing you as its not really the amount or whats in the parcel, its the fact that you have given that counts....

Well here it is........as you can see there are a variety of items ranging from a Christmas biscuit selection box, to aftershave for men.  These are probably luxury items that a person struggling at Christmas would not be purchasing for themselves as the essentials are more important.....we can help, however little you can give, it will help someone somewhere and you never know it may even put a smile on their face knowing that someone else has thought about them, I mean at the end of the day we all want to be thought about my someone, don't we?

This week has been full of highs and lows, at one stage I thought I had secured lots of carrier bags for FREE as that is one other thing that the foodbank require especially now that they are 5-10p per BAG, that's extra expense.  Anyway, as I said I had sorted out the carrier bags for free from a well established company in Woking, who actually said that they would deliver them to the office for me, well a week passed and still no carrier bags, so off I went armed with my notebook and camera to get that all important interview for social media coverage for the company, which of course is what I am doing in exchange for cash donations or goodies, only to be told when I got there that actually there had been a misunderstanding, well I get that its everyone's option to change their mind, but I know that free is free so not sure where the misunderstanding came into play, but anyhow, with head held high I thanked them for their time and left with my notebook empty........  Seriously, this has now left me with no carrier bags hmmmmm what to do next?

I am not one to give up easily so I put my thinking cap on and I got in touch with the area manager for CO-OP, convenience stores, Gareth.  After all this is a local campaign so its great to get local businesses involved.   I explained to Gareth via email my plight of the carrier bags and would the CO-OP like to come to the rescue? to my delight Gareth said "YES we would love to help", well can you imagine, that was like music to my ears.......carrier bags are back on the tick box.  Its weird really I never thought that I would get that excited about getting free carrier bags, but there you go.

Here is a piccie of Julie Nicholls the deputy manager of The CO-OP in St Johns, its a great little convenience store right in the heart of St Johns and ya know its a busy little shop too even at 8am in the morning which is when I visited.   Julie is a local lady from Knaphill and has been working for the Co-Op for in excess of 30 years and has been working at the St Johns branch for 6 years.  Julie has very kindly donated 1000, yes a 1000 carrier bags for FREE which is amazing and the promise of more if we need them.  I cant express my gratitude enough as I said above the Foodbank do not sell their carrier bags to the clients so hopefully this will enable them to save a bit more cash to be spent on food!

So to the company that let me down, who shall remain nameless with no social media coverage for their business, its totally your loss and to Gareth the area manager of The Co-Op and Julie Nicholls, Deputy Manager of St Johns branch many many thanks for your help.  Welcome aboard my Christmas Foodbank Campaign, I shall promote your business via Facebook, Twitter and even a little ole mention on Radio Woking!!!!!

Now that my campaign is underway, Click on the  Shopping list, these are items that are required.  Remember, my drop off points for food parcels are Brookwood Club and also Brookwood Post Office/Bakers Dozen all during working hours or alternatively, drop me an email trudifletcher@rocketmail.com or if you know where I live in the village feel free to knock on my door.....

Thats it for this week, but stay tuned for more news.....