May Newsletter

We loved this sign and collection box spotted in Camberwell asking for clean reusable bags to be donated to our food bank. What a great idea! We rely on reusable bags to pack our food parcels to deliver to clients. In the current climate we ask that cotton bags are washed and plastic bags are wiped inside and out with soapy water. A number of streets and blocks of flats have already been doing collections including Florida Road, Eastmearn Road, Chatsworth Road, Waddington Way and Woodyard lane. A big thank you to everyone who has helped. If you have a box full of bags do email us at [email protected] and we’ll send a driver to collect them.

We thought you might like to see how our warehouse operates in the current environment, so we have made THIS SHORT FILM for you to watch. Around 60 volunteers help make our new delivery service possible with roles including driving, packing, sorting and processing vouchers. A huge thank you to our amazing team of volunteers and to everyone who has helped over the last few weeks and also to all who have donated food, money or supported us in some other way – we are very grateful!

We’ve featured in a few local publications recently including the Brixton Blog and the Brixton Buzz. We’ve also had some interest from further afield with leading French newspaper Le Monde publishing a story featuring our trustee Alison-Ingles Jones, and French TV station TF1 keen to produce a short news item.
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A long overdue mention for Jason Cartwright and his charity Give Food. Jason has been supporting our food bank for many years now, often donating huge quantities of food by using technology to identify exactly what food we need. You can find out more about how the technology works on his website. Since the Covid-19 outbreak, Jason has diverted his efforts to further support food banks across the UK by shipping 500,000 gloves and intending to blow his yearly budget on disposable food safe gloves, plastic bags and cardboard boxes. Our food bank has already benefited by receiving disposable gloves and most recently 800 flat-packed boxes in which to pack food parcels. We are so appreciative to Jason for all his continued support to both our food bank and others across the country.

My name is Johanna Derry Hall and I’m a freelance journalist and editor. I write a lot about food – trends, producers, people who make things. I think food is one of the greatest joys of life, so I hate the idea that for some people it’s a constant struggle to have enough to buy food to eat. I live in Camberwell, just up the road from the Brixton branch and have been volunteering every three weeks on Saturdays for about 8 years. Before that I volunteered at a food bank on the Roehampton estate in Wandsworth for three years or so – it’s a cause that’s been close to my heart for a long time. I’m a session lead at Brixton on Saturdays and it’s one of the best things I do – I love the diversity of people I meet on a Saturday morning and hearing their stories – there’s no ‘food bank type’, hard times can happen to us all. Sometimes there are tears, and it’s hard to hear how people struggle; but often there’s a lot of joy and laughter. I find nothing more satisfying than discovering one of my team is fluent in a language one of our guests speaks so we can help them more easily, and pulling out a food item that I know will make their day because it’s their favourite thing. I also run Brixton food bank’s Twitter feed (yes it’s my fault…) where we try and communicate what we do and what we need, and share news so that our supporters and people locally know what we’re up to. As much as possible I try to make this fun! We ran a really successful ‘what should you donate’ daily quiz before Christmas that got a lot of love. Right now, it’s really important as people are asking lots of questions about how they can help and get help because of Coronavirus. Food is so much more than fuel – it’s hospitality, community, and simple joy. To know you’re cared for and listened to is just as important as knowing you will be fed.I believe that’s what we give to people at food bank too – help, warm words, and an all-encompassing welcome.

Reg is self employed and works on the production side for an event company called Focus. He said that he is very happy working for the Norwood and Brixton Foodbank as he is transferring his organisational and production skills from Focus to the food bank. Reg also spent two months working with refugees in Calais in 2016 and experienced similar food production and delivery systems to meet the need of those in hunger. He said ‘I feel as I did in Calais, the disparity again between those who have food and those who don’t, the resonance between the two situations is similar’.

Roy has been furloughed from British Gas as engineers are no longer allowed into homes due to the Covid-19 outbreak. Instead, with permission from British Gas, he is using their van to deliver food, packed up by volunteers, to people who have been referred to the Norwood and Brixton Foodbank. He says: ‘People keep saying thank you, thank you, for all the food they are getting. They are so grateful and smiling. This is a joyous experience.’

We wanted to thank the Friends of Windmill Gardens (FoWG) who have donated 40 bags of stoneground wholemeal flour milled from the Brixton Windmill. Made from organically grown English wheat, the flour would normally be sold to local food shops or at the Windmill but due to current restrictions they have decided to donate it to our food bank instead. We are grateful for this and their offer for additional future deliveries.

Our Foodbank app allows you to view food items that are in short supply and also allows us to send a push message to you when we urgently need a particular item. The app is available for both iPhones and Android phones. It’s free to download, simply go to your app store and search for Foodbank by Redemption Media.

Please note that due to Covid-19, our distribution points are currently closed! Drop-boxes are still operating in various local shops across Lambeth. 

We have three distribution points across the Borough of Lambeth with different opening times for each. Click on the image above for more information regarding our food distribution points.In addition to the three distribution centres, we have a number of drop-boxes situated in local shops and community hubs across Lambeth.

We have a number of new initiatives to suit your donating preferences, including our text to donate service where simply by texting ‘dinner 5’  or ‘dinner 10’ to 70085 enables you to donate the corresponding amount through your phone. Please click on the image above and download our ‘ways to donate’ info sheet to see all options available to you.