We know some folk are still in the middle of Harvest and Halloween is still to come, but with one eye on the next lot of big festivities, we need to mention the ‘Christmas’ word…sorry!
Last year, local people across all of our centres, donated over 16 tonnes of food (that’s the equivalent of about 40 reindeer…) between the middle of November until the end of December. This really does stock us up for a good few months and we really couldn’t do what we do without it. It is also a LOT of food so we have been even more organised this year in preparation!
We have a few helpful hints and suggestions if you are planning to support us this year:
1. We are issuing our reverse advent calendar – please see downloadable document. We know these are getting more popular each year which is amazing. What we would suggest is starting this on 1st November as it then means you can get it to us at the start of December and it gives us time to sort and distribute the items. We will have 24 items on the calendar and we know in the past families have done this with their children, as well as businesses where staff can be designated an item to donate.
2. We usually receive a lot of donations of mince pies and advent calendars, which is amazing, but mince pies actually have a really short date and we can really struggle to get these distributed. We also usually get a lot of advent calendars, and again often struggle with the amount and to use them all. We do give out Christmas items on the lead up to Christmas and usually have quite a surplus so if we could ask you to bear that in mind when donating that would be appreciated.
3. Peterhead and Inverurie Foodbank Centres are going to be open for donations drop off only one extra session per week so they can focus on people needing food during the usual sessions. Peterhead is starting next Wednesday 11.30-1.30pm. Inverurie times to follow. For Huntly and Ellon, please contact the foodbank to discuss drop offs.
4. If you are doing a collection that will dropped off, or even need collected, if possible, please give us as much notice as possible so we can have volunteers ready and prepared. Numbers for each centre are on our website in the link below
5. We will be doing our annual Tesco Food Collection from the 21-23rd November in Huntly, Inverurie and Ellon. Please say hello to our volunteers – they are an amazing (and friendly!) bunch of folk who give up even more of their time for the collection and really enjoy chatting folk about they work they do.
6. We cannot give out items that contain alcohol – either alcohol itself or food infused with alcohol as it may affect people on certain types of medication or compromise people who are in recovery – it’s amazing how many Christmas items may have a little bit of booze in them.
As always, thank you for your support – it is always appreciated.