Sainsbury’s Amblecote in Sandringham Way took part in a unique one day food collection on Saturday 26^th November, where customers were asked to buy an extra item, which will then be delivered to local charities and community projects by the charity FareShare this Christmas.

Customers were asked to choose from a variety of long-life items including tins (meat, fish, veg, fruit), dried pasta, rice, tea and instant coffee.

The special one day food drive involving over 600 Sainsbury’s stores was run in partnership with FareShare, the national food charity that addresses hunger in the UK by redistributing quality surplus food from the food industry to people who need it across the country.

All fifteen local regional stores took part in the initiative, which also includes Merry Hill, Blackheath, Kidderminster and Blackheath.

Sainsbury’s has been working with FareShare since 1994 but this is the first time customers from all across the country are being asked to actively take part.

BCFB has been partnering with Fare Share; Birmingham sine 2007 and Fare Share; Bristol since 2010

l-r; Wendy (BCFB), Ben Taylor (Sainsbury's), Julie Bate (Sainsbury's; Amblecote Community Liason)

Ben Taylor (Sainsbury’s, Amblecote) with young shopper Natasha Garbett

Hello folks!

We need your votes please!

We’ve applied for some funding from Nat West’s Community Force scheme.  It’s a competitive process where we’re up against other local projects and we’ll only win the funding if we get the most votes.

So, that’s why we’re asking everyone who’s involved with Foodbank to vote for us.

How to vote.

Voting is easy.

Either vote online on the Nat West Community Force website (http://communityforce.natwest.com) or

call the Community Force helpline on 0800 2100 246 (lines are open Monday – Saturday 8am -9pm).

Voting opens on Monday 26 September and closes on Sunday 23 October.

Please help us to drum up as much support as possible by asking all your family, friends, colleagues, neighbours, congregation and contacts to vote for us.

Every vote really does count!

Let’s go viral – please forward this email to everyone in your contacts list and tell all your friends on Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin too.

You can also print out the Vote for Black Country Foodbank poster and stick it on your church or company notice boards.

If you need any more info, contact us

Love and thanks

Wendy and the Foodbank Team

Wow! What a week this has been, and it ain’t over yet…

Many, many thanks to all the folks at the BBC, you’ve been amazing (Emma, Abigail, Phil, Sarah, Andy, the other cameraman, Nick & Suzanne), you can read more here on the BBC web site.

Many thanks also to Paul at ‘Our Plaice’, Halesowen for his generous offer of vouchers for our local families to have a fish and chip meal on him, amazing!

We’ve had lots of calls, texts, emails and facebook hits wanting to know how to help, well…… I’ve just added a new page to this very web site ‘Harvest-time Collection Ideas’ , you can have a look there for another idea.

Can you help to keep our shelves stacked?

Please remember, the school holidays are not over yet for the families we’re trying to help and the Christmas holidays then start to loom.

The things we collect can be found here and places to drop off donations are listed here , if you need to come to The Storehouse (our warehouse facility nr. jct3 of the M5) please email: admin@blackcountryfoodbank.org.uk and we’ll let you know where we are and when we’re open.

Hi Everyone

Weeee’re baaack!

We’re refreshed (hopefully) and ready to go, the Storehouse is open for ‘business’ again after our holiday closure last week, so what could they possibly want you murmur….

Well.. Jeremy & Kelvin have surveyed the racks and we need to ask you to dig deep.

Thursday 28^th July, before our closure, we fed (just at the Storehouse) an astonishing 41 people, yes you read that correctly, forty-one (including 22 children) in one day. What can I say, it’s the school holidays and children still need to eat; what’s most worrying is that the partner agency that cared enough to get these families some help won’t be around anymore, they’ve been CUT!

So, please will you add Foodbank to your shopping list as stocks a low of…..

FOOD:

UHT FRUIT JUICE

POTATOES (tinned & dried)

CORNED BEEF

COFFEE

SWEETCORN
CARROTS
COOKING SAUCES (curry, pasta, chilli etc)

RICE PUDDING (tinned)

BREAKFAST CEREALS

RICE (smaller packs as we have bulk bags)

NOODLES (the 10/11p ones)

BISCUITS

READY MEALS (vegetarian & meat)

MEAT (corned beef, ham, chicken, minced beef, stewed steak etc)

NON-FOOD:

SHAMPOO

SHOWER GEL
ROLL-ON DEODOURANT

TOOTHPASTE

TIN/CAN OPENERS

You can drop-off your donations at any of our distribution centres:
or at the Storehouse; Mon – Fri , 09:30 – 14:00.

Thank You sooooo much for all your help and support, without you we couldn’t do what we do.

Lots of Love,

Wendy & All the team @ the Storehouse

I found this article by Adi Bloom, and as a bit of a follow-up to my blog of 13/05/2011 (see below) I thought I’d post a link for you

http://www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx?storycode=6088649

The title is ‘Nowhere to Call Home’

“Thousands of young people have to live in makeshift or temporary accommodation while dealing with the pressures of school and exams. Many ‘sofa surf’ with friends, unwilling to admit – even to themselves – that they are homeless. Too often, teachers miss the warning signs.”

At BCFB we’re getting more and more requests for our help every day from staff at schools in our region, teachers/admin/support, they’re having to deal with dreadful situations. We help where we can, and always we need to remember that these are children and most of them do not have the emotional experience or skills to deal with the circumstances they find themselves and their families facing.

How about a two day old baby and parents having to ‘sofa-surf’?

Thank goodness for the health professionals seeing this dreadful situation and doing something about it.

Do I get vocal about such things? Darn right I do!

Happy Birthday Black Country Foodbank?

As we at BCFB recognise our 5th Birthday this week, we are so mindful that we appear to have only ‘scratched the surface’ of the need in our communities.

So, this week any celebrations have be more subdued than you’d think and tempered with the knowelegde that we can only give away what you donate to us and for that trust, we thank you!

• You have journeyed with us from a dining-room table to 5000ft² of storage plus the 8 distribution centres,

• from being told there couldn’t possibly be a need for a foodbank to the statuatory sector asking us to show them how to do this,

• from a few boxes in the back of my car to two vans on the road 5/6 days a week

Some of the other highlights, as we reflect, are:

• • Across the region we have given away “in Jesus’ name” and that of the wider community and incredible 119,120 meals
  • We’ve shifted somewhere in the realms of 124 tonnes of food
  • 2.5 tonnes of toiletries have been distributed
  • Countless items of clothing, bedding and sleeping bags have been given away
  • We’ve been able to touch the lives of over 120,000 people

• We’ve also helped other projects around the region and beyond; who can forget the flooding in Cockermouth? We went up on the Sunday morning with about 2tonnes of food, toiletries, cleaning materials and gifts, surreal
• In the last week we’ve taken delivery of an additional vehicle, bought with specific donations from local Christian businessmen
• Just at head office, our volunteers contribute the equivalent of about 300 hours per week which even at min. wage comes out at about £125k worth of giving
• The need for what we do is growing every day; the stories become more harrowing BUT we keep going cos this is what Jesus asked us to do.

Are we finished, is the job done yet? Not by any stretch of the imagination.

We’ve only just scratched the surface of the need around us.

Church, you are amazing. Look at what you have achieved!

People of the Black Country & beyond, you are incredible. Look what you’ve accomplished!

We’ll keep you updated,

Loads of Love, Wendy & ALL the team at Black Country Foodbank.

Keep up to date with us on facebook or our website: BCFB, ask to go on the mailing list

HOWEVER, there is still so much more to do…..

My feet have hardly touched the ground this week…

As I sit like an undercover cop in a supermarket car park, waiting for a desperate mother to collect a few bags of goods from Foodbank, I started to jot down a little list of just the stuff that I personally have been involved with this week.

On Wednesday I met the Bishop of Wolverhampton, Clive Gregory, and the Diocese of Lichfield’s Dir. of Transforming Communities, David Primrose, at a lovely church in Darlaston. Along with council officers and people from several faith communities, we talked about how we (that’s the big ‘we’) could help and transform the communities around us.

Why do I mention this; because more and more people are turning to Church and other expressions of faith for help as they find themselves and their families at crisis or breaking-point!

I came back to the Storehouse from another meeting later in the week to see someone sitting in our (aspires to be) reception area, when I asked our volunteers who they were, they replied “This lady has knocked on the vicarage door looking for help and the vicar has brought her here to see if we could help”. So there with a great cuppa and her vicar alongside was ‘Mary’, she wasn’t looking for anything for herself but for her four children…..there was only one item we couldn’t help with: the electric and gas!

Now, we don’t give money to anyone who comes to us for help but we like to be able to signpost them to some other form of help, however in this case there was no one/nothing to signpost Mary to. Oh, don’t get me wrong, we adjusted the type of food we gave her but she still couldn’t cook anyof it and while she now had toiletries, the children had no hot water to have a bath or wash. What difference did it make whether she had the choice of tea or coffee; she can’t make a hot drink until she can “put two bob in the meter”, that’s fuel poverty! Oh, just say it….That’s poverty! full stop, no ifs buts or maybes.

Mary was dreading the forthcoming half-term break from school, not because the children would be under her feet, or she couldn’t get on with her social engagements but because she couldn’t feed them! She can’t afford to send them to the myriad of holiday clubs, her words ring true for so many other families, “there’s no free school meals, they’re going to eat me out of house an’ home, when they’re bored they eat.” We gave her extra snacks for the children; she said she’ll have to hide them to make them last the week.

Back to the supermarket car park and real life; it’s another Mum who’s desperate for food over the bank holiday weekend and impending half-term break. She scuttles across toward me with a look on her face that says, ‘are you?’, “Hi there, have you come from ***dept.?” say I, trying to not look like I’ve been wondering if I was in the right car park after all. “Thank you so much¸  thank you for waiting,” I hand her the bags that match the brand of the store we’re standing near, she looks at the contents and thanks me again.

She goes away laden with most of what she needs to get her family over the next few days; her story’s much like Mary’s, sometimes it feels like a vinyl record that’s stuck in the same groove saying the same thing over and over again but getting faster, at other times though; when someone comes back to let you know they’re back on their feet, that they’d like to make contribution to Foodbank as their way of giving something back – those are the times that keep you going, that remind you why we do this and make it the best job in the world!

In the morning, back at the office there’s a large envelope addressed to me personally; I’d been nominated for a civic award (I didn’t win) for community spirit, someone somewhere thought enough of what we do to put pen to paper. The certificate may have my name on it but it belongs to a much larger, diverse team of dedicated volunteers.

Ok, back to reality; two children’s centre workers are on their way to collect food for families however, there is only one canister of baby formula in the Storehouse and two families needing it. It’s down to who gets here first – ridiculous but true and heart-breaking at the same time.

What an amazing day!

BCFB were privileged to host the Dudley CVS ‘Volunteering Champion Celebration’ here at The Storehouse today.

We welcomed the incoming Mayor of Dudley, Cllr Michael Evans to his new role as Volunteering Champion for the borough. We also got to thank Cllr Peter Miller for being such a brilliant champion of volunteering throughout his year of office.

Our volunteers were presented with certificates by the Mayor, even our visiting Finnish friend,

the press took lots of photos and there was even a birthday cake!

Why a birthday cake, you ask? Why, because we’re 5yrs old in a few weeks……

Five years and over 50,000 volunteer hours = 92,000+ meals we’ve been able to distribute to your community, WOW!

I’ve been in reflective mood this last week, what with having to look back at all our archived facts and materials, some of the photos raised a laugh and some meant tears.

As some of the dignitaries and volunteers looked at our ‘performance’ graphs they were amazed, touched and curious in equal measures about what we’ve achieved and also what those numbers represent…..people who we’ve helped with that most basic of human needs; FOOD!

Some of the photos of our volunteers, past & present, Ian who sadly died earlier this year would have loved to have been involved today, brought back so many memories of those we’ve fed; the stories they come with and the hope they go away with.

They say ‘there’s nothing new under the sun’ but watching the faces of our volunteers this morning has been painful.

other 16yr olds are concentrating on their GCSEs

S has just come in for an extra shift at The Storehouse with TWO shopping lists, not for herself or for stock at the distribution centre she runs, but for TWO teenagers who presented, separately, at BCFB

One, 16yrs old, still in school uniform, trying to sit for GCSEs, has been made homeless.

He’s got nothing!

No change of underwear, no bedding, no food – 16yrs old!

society?

The other one is a wheelchair user and again has NOTHING, but the one thing they have in common is they’re both homeless teenagers.

S is up on the mezzanine gathering together clothing, bedding etc; she got them both fed yesterday and issued toiletries.

They’ve been found accommodation by a housing association; well done…BUT what is happening to us as a society?

Last time I sat and ‘blogged’ I penned the thought about the day I’ll be able to say we’re not needed anymore, that day just seems so much further off this morning.

D’you know if our volunteers weren’t moved to tears, as they were today, I’d be worried.

Our volunteers are amazing; they selflessly give & give again without asking for anything in return.

Our communities around the region are fantastic; we let you know what’s needed and YOU send/bring it into The Storehouse, Thank You!

It’s now late afternoon, I’ve been trying to write this since 10:00am but the ‘phone keeps ringing and the emails just keep coming in with requests for our help.

Try this one (this afternoon): 2 Adults, 2 Children + 3Young Adults in a relatively affluent area of the Black Country and the children’s school has contacted us…..the family haven’t got any food and their benefits have been cut. On top of that one of the young adults is very pregnant and has nothing for the impending arrival of a precious life.

Can we help? Of course, what would you do?

Just gone 3:00pm and the ‘phone’s just rung again, this time it’s a Children’s Centre worker looking for help for a family of six but it’s ok because the volunteers have said they’ll stay later and wait for the worker to arrive so that they’ll know the family have at least been fed.

Click the links to find out the kind of things we need you to donate…

Greetings & Salutations Everyone

I hope you’re all ready for yet another long weekend…..

Our “Voucher Queen”, Sue, has just informed me that even during this very disjointed month of April she’s sent out 37 sets of vouchers to our partner agencies, that’s 370 potential service users (more if it’s families)!

Nb. if you need vouchers; don’t leave it ‘til the last one’s gone to request your next batch, just email vouchers@blackcountryfoodbank.org.uk and our “Voucher Queen” will get them out to you asap.

the young girl's bag was held together with staples

I was with an agency worker (Anne) yesterday and she was telling me about a family we’ve helped recently:

Mum and a couple of kids; when Anne visited them they said they were ok and there were many people much worse off than them. However Anne asked to have a look in the kitchen to find that there was only a bag of rice in the cupboards, Anne had to insist that they needed a voucher and reluctantly they went off to one of our distribution centres together.

While there Anne chatted to the girl about school and discovered that her school-bag was held together with staples! One of our volunteers overheard and offered another bag but the young girl insisted she could re-staple it when she got to school.  Well Jesus had other ideas cos just that week we had rescued over a ¼tonne of ‘back to school’ goods from being crushed and incinerated, (well done to that member of staff who organized them to come to us).

That small family went away not only with the food they so desperately needed but that young girl and her brother also left with items for school which most young teens would take for granted but those few things that the family received reduced them to tears.

Can I just say a massive Thank You to all of you out there that tirelessly give so that we can help families and individuals like this. Thank You

Jeremy & Kelvin have given me their list of shortages from The Storehouse for you all, so here goes…

CEREAL all sizes

Tinned TOMATOES (these can be used to extend meals)

COOKING SAUCES (Bolognese, curry, pasta, chilli etc.)

BISCUITS (a bit of a treat)

FRUIT JUICE UHT

NOODLES ( the cheap ones, about 10p/pack)

Tinned POTATOES

I’m informed we only have approx. 1 weeks supply of

READY MEALS

(Stew, Ravioli, Bolognese, Curry, Chilli, Beans/Sausages etc. & Macaroni Cheese, Cauli. Cheese etc.)

& MEAT (Minced Beef & Onions, Stewed Steak, Corned Beef, Ham, Hot Dogs etc.)

In the Non-Food aisle we’re low on LOO ROLLS please.

Right, I’m off; hopefully our next update will include all the numbers for April….

Just a thought; wouldn’t it be brilliant if the next email you got from us was to tell you that our service was no longer needed as

everyone was fine and had enough to eat? A girl can dream, can’t she?

Don’t forget ‘Poverty Sunday’ June 26^th and our 5^th Birthday on 21^st June; what are you going to do?

Hi Everyone, Happy Easter!

Well, it’s Good Friday and the Storehouse is closed today hence I can get a minute to speak to you.

2011 has been an amazing ride thus far…..

1676 people fed because of YOUR generosity (@31/03/2011),

that’s well up on the same period for 2010 (1112)

Amazing as these numbers are, we are getting calls and emails most days now from agencies, community groups, other charities and the general public right across the region looking for help. In some cases this is help for themselves as they’ve heard about us or looked on-line for help or agency workers looking for a way to help those they’re working with.

Those of you who keep up to date with us on our web site www.blackcountryfoodbank.org.uk or

via Facebook https://www.facebook.com/blackcountryfoodbank will have noticed a shortage of posts; well that’s why I’m plugging away at the office today – we’ve been so busy!

If we’re busy it means we need your help even more……

Jeremy, Kelvin & Dave have given me a list of what’s needed on the shelves¸ so here goes:

In the FOOD department the stocks are low of:                TOMATOES (Tinned, Cartons)

COOKING SAUCES (Jars, Cans, Cartons, Dried)

RICE PUDDING (Tinned)

FRUIT JUICE (UHT- Cartons or Bottles)

SQUASH

Tinned READY MEALS (Meat & Vegetarian)

-Macaroni Cheese, Spag. Bol., Beans & Sausages, Stew/Casserole

Breakfast CEREALS

In the Non-FOOD aisle they need:                                         TOILET ROLLS

SANITARY TOWELS

Roll-On DEODERANT

SHAMPOO

SHOWER GEL

We’ve had a health visitor in this week (15mth old twins in need) so we need to replenish our stocks:

anyone out there got COTS (travel or otherwise) hiding in the garage or loft,

COT BEDDING

PUSHCHAIRS/PRAMS (especially if suitable for newborns)

Another agency have asked for a LADIES CYCLE for someone who’s gone self-employed (very enterprising) but needs a cycle to get to jobs.

We’ve given away the one’s we had in stock just in the last month; “Fred’s” using the one we gave him to get to his Prince’s Trust Team course and the other one went via Loaves & Fishes to one of the people they helped. Howszat! sadly I’m a cricket fan and the new season is creeping up on me.

Something for your diaries:

Black Country Foodbank is 5 yrs old this June 21st

Can you think about how you, your friends, your office, your school could help us celebrate?

Send us your ideas to admin@blackcountryfoodbank.org.uk

• Here’s one idea: Sunday 26^th June is POVERTY SUNDAY go online to http://www.cuf.org.uk/act/poverty-sunday
• What about a day when you give what you would have spent on food or going out to BCFB
• People of Church@Junction10 have taken part in a Foodbank Challenge, eating and drinking only what they would have received from Foodbank had they needed the service and getting sponsored to do it!   We’ve got the resource packs at the office if you &/or your family/group want to take part.

So, please keep in touch

Thank You ALL so very much for all your giving,

The reason we do this is the very reason we celebrate Easter!

When so much has been given for us how can we not respond?