Spring into action! 40 ways to help your foodbank
This spring, we’ve got lots of ways – 40 – to help you find the one thing you can do to support your local foodbank. Some are free, some take a little time, some you can do from home.
Check back as we update the list each week!
Whether Lent is a deeply spiritual season for you or another chance to kick start those new year resolutions without the January fog, spring is a good time to do some good in your community.
See also the Give Help pages for more details.
- Find and follow your local foodbank on social media, and share at least one post. Foodbanks often rely on social media to get the message out when they need support as well as using it to reach people who need help. Extra follows and interactions make it easier for foodbanks to stay visible online. [Free, needs an account]
www.facebook.com/southendfoodbank/
www.twitter.com/southendfoodban
www.instagram.com/southendfoodbank/
- Find you nearest donation point. You can see all of our main drop-off locations on a searchable Google map layer: bit.ly/MapFoodbank [Free]
If there isn’t a donation point near you, is there a local business or community venue you could ask to host one? If so, get in touch with the warehouse to have a chat about setting up a collection point – email [email protected]
Or could you be inspired by Leigh Tin Team and set up a micro-local collection together with your neighbours?
- As Lent begins, challenge UK hunger with the Give Up 10 campaign with the Trussell Trust.
Ending food poverty can’t be done overnight. But by setting aside these 10 minutes every day during Lent, you can play your part. [Free, requires sign up]
For church study groups, Church Action on Poverty is offering a Lent course, Life on the Breadline, based on three years of anti-poverty work. The course runs across 6 weeks, with materials for small groups and individual actions. [Free, download required]
- Take on an AdLent challenge – just like reverse advent calendars before Christmas, you collect a different food item each day. At 40 days it’s a longer challenge so team up to spread the load. Using the AdLent jigsaw you can learn more about the range of food items that go into a food box. When everyone donates a little, it soon adds up! A great idea for small groups. [£, cost of donated food]
- Support supermarket collection days. When foodbanks run collection days in-store they collect a lot more food than at the passive drop-off points, and the big supermarket chains top-up a bonus amount donated on the day. Making a donation in store makes an even bigger difference on these days. [£, cost of donated food]
The next Southend Foodbank collection day is March 5th at Waitrose on Fossetts Way.
Missed this one? Email Emma on [email protected] to offer your time to help at another supermarket collection. Next 2022 dates are: Asda Shoeburyness (6-8th May); Waitrose, Fossetts Way (4th June changed to 11th June); and Tesco, Prince Avenue (30th June – 2nd July).
- Trussell Trust foodbanks are committed to tackling hunger by distributing food to those who turn to us and working towards ending the need for foodbanks in the UK. Some of this work looks at the economic pressures that push people into poverty. Read the recent research report into the impact of debt and destitution on people who use foodbanks – and importantly, what can change. [Free]
- One of the types of food that the foodbank often needs to buy is “meat meals” – tinned meat that can form the main protein (and flavour) in a cooked meal, alongside vegetables or mash. There’s a whole row of these in this year’s Adlent challenge. Giving people food to meet their immediate needs includes respecting any dietary limitations. This week, can you find a tin to donate that meets a wider range of dietary needs, like gluten-free, halal or a vegetarian alternative? [£, cost of donated food]
- If you’re celebrating International Women’s Day, take time to reflect on the inequalities of poverty and food insecurity and the impact on women – from single parent families, domestic violence, cost of care-giving and the effect of motherhood on working-age income. Trussell Trust research shows single mothers, mothers with 3 or more children and women escaping domestic violence are particularly at risk of food poverty that pushes them towards needing a foodbank. [Free]
If you’re inspired to act for change, find out more and support the All Kids Count campaign, led by the Child Poverty Action Group alongside Trussell Trust and other charities working to fight poverty.
- If you’re donating food to a foodbank, add in a carrier bag too. Foodbanks need strong, re-useable carrier bags to pack food for people to take home. If we’d bought all the carrier bags we needed last month it could have cost £300! Donating good, strong, reusable carrier bags helps make the foodbank a bit easier to use. Drop off bags to any of the usual donation points. [Free if you’re donating a spare, or approx. 20p-75p if you’re buying a new reusable carrier bag]
- During Food Waste Action Week, a gentle reminder: food waste is not the root cause of hunger, food insecurity and poverty are, and people who are running out of food to eat aren’t causing a surplus.
We also know from Trussell Trust research that the majority of people visiting a foodbank have been eating less than their nutritional needs, have fewer resources for cooking and storing food safely, and tend to have poorer health already. Ask yourself if that is the part of society that should be expected to eat more food beyond its best and safest. And remember that foodbanks depend on part-time volunteers to keeping running. The logistics of managing with an uncertain supply of food that needs rapid processing and distribution is a huge challenge, as well as increasing running costs for refrigeration, storage etc. However, tackling food waste is still a good thing! For the environment and for your budget. Find out more about tackling food waste in your own home through Love Food, Hate Waste https://www.lovefoodhatewaste.com/food-waste-action-week [Free and if you learn something new about how to tackle your own food waste, you could actually save some money!]
If you have surplus food that you can’t donate to a foodbank, including frozen, opened and out-of-date food, check out apps like Olio for free sharing in your local community. [Free]
- Raise money for the foodbank without costing you any more when you shop online with EasyFundraising.org.uk [Free]
Over 6,000 shops and sites will donate to Southend Foodbank, including all the big names like eBay, Amazon, Argos, Booking.com, M&S and Just Eat! Plus, you could raise up to £50 donations when you use easyfundraising to save money on your household bills including car and home insurance, energy, phone contract or broadband. Uswitch, GoCompare, Confused.com and many more will all donate to us for FREE!
Even if you don’t shop much online, signing up for an Easyfundraising account offers you the option to enter prize draws with a chance to win prizes for you and the foodbank.
Sign up with our unique link to boost your donations: www.easyfundraising.org.uk/causes/southendfoodbank/?utm_campaign=raise-more&utm_medium=clipboard&utm_content=cpl
- Check out our wishlist on Amazon for items you can buy and have delivered straight to the warehouse, which is great if you want to donate but can’t make it to any of our donation points. The list includes long life food items, toiletries and household hygiene products. [£, cost of donations] amzn.eu/7I1ePAD
And while you’re shopping on Amazon, sign up for Amazon Smile. Every time you buy with Amazon Smile, Amazon will donate 0.5% of the price of your purchases. Same products, same prices, same service. And it costs you nothing more than you are spending anyway on your shopping. [Free] smile.amazon.co.uk/ch/1163160-0
If you’re not into Amazon, you can use Easyfundraising for even more retailers who donate to us when you make purchases online.
- Colourthon is back! Both the Moonlight Colourthon (half marathon) and Twilight Colourthon (10k) will be taking over the streets with colour and good causes on 2nd July 2022. [£20 early registration, or £25 late registration fee]
Or offer your time to be a steward to help keep this event running [Free, plus a free cup of tea at the end!]
This is Southend’s biggest fun walk and fundraising event on the calendar, with participants raising money for their chosen charity. The last Colourthon included two amazing groups walking to raise money for Southend Foodbank – could you and your friends, family or colleagues step up and light up the streets with colour for us this summer? Register now for the early bird entrance fee (£20). If you’re walking for the foodbank, don’t forget to let us know and tag us in your social media posts so we can give your sponsorship appeals a bump!
- For Nutrition and Hydration week, find out more about how Trussell Trust foodbanks respond to the nutritional needs of people turning to a foodbank for support. [£ cost of donated food]
One of the biggest challenges to overcome is people not having enough to eat, skipping meals or cutting portions to make their food stretch further, so that they need food with sufficient calories to ‘catch up’. Food aid also needs to include a variety of food groups, proteins and fruit and veg which are generally more expensive than cheap quick carbs. Another problem is the cost of storing, safely heating and cooking food, and cleaning up afterwards. Hydration is important too, and hot drinks are often recommended as one way to keep warm in cold weather.
If you’re donating food this week, can you add something that’s going to be quick and easy to prepare, but also tackles some of the nutritional challenges of food aid? For example – Tinned fruit, long life fruit juice or a good quality soup that count towards your 5 a day. UHT milk that can help make a quick breakfast with porridge, but doesn’t need to be refrigerated before you use it, or powdered milk for people who don’t have any fridge at all. A fruit squash or a nice hot chocolate that could make a warm drink with plenty of calories.
Check out Jack Monroe’s Tin Can Cook for more information about the nutrition of tinned and long-life food, available in the library and most foodbanks have a copy too (thanks Jack!).
[Free at the library or around £6 for your own copy]
In mid-April, Big Green Bookshop was running ‘buy a stranger a book’, to share Jack’s books for free. To buy one for a stranger, or get one for free, check out their social media and website.
- The Trussell Trust is part of the #LiftTheBan coalition of charities and organisations campaigning for people seeking asylum to be given the right to work in the UK. Banned from working, people seeking asylum are pushed deeper into poverty, and @RefugeeAction found that half turned to foodbanks as a result. Find out more, get involved and use the template to write to your MP this week before the House of Commons next debates the Nationality and Borders Bill following the addition of the right to work for asylum seekers to the legislation in the House of Lords. [Free]
- Spring is a great time to get moving more and if you’re ready for a challenge, take a look at Trussell Trust’s Run Against Hunger. [Free to register, although donations to cover admin costs are welcome; all funds raised go to the Trussell Trust and not your local foodbank]
Take part in this unique virtual event, choose your distance, plan your own route and take on the event at a time that suits you! It doesn’t matter whether you’re an experienced runner or a novice. Make it your challenge, your race. Run, jog, walk, start at dawn, start at dusk, wear your armband or your Race Against Hunger T-Shirt with pride.
Make it as big or local or meaningful as you can; go on your own, with a club, in a team or with your school. You can raise funds for the foodbank too, with a free fundraising page set up for you when you register for your Race Against Hunger.
One of our team has supersized the challenge, and is racing between all 8 locations of the foodbank – 21km and an estimated 4.5hrs (and that’s not a complete loop, so there’s more walking to get home afterwards!). Check out the Team Southend fundraising page to see one way you can Race Against Hunger.
- Get involved with Fans Supporting Southend Foodbanks, a group of Shrimpers (that’s Southend United fans for the uninitiated) who organise foodbank collections in SUFC home pubs and other activities supporting the foodbank and tackling food poverty. [Free, or £ cost of donations]
- Meet Fans Supporting Southend Foodbanks in their own words over on Shrimpers Talk.
- You’ll find FSSF collection crates in the Blue Boar and Spread Eagle Pubs, to drop off donations anytime the pubs are open. On some match days they’ll be there too talking about foodbanks, football and community solidarity. Follow @SUFCfoodbanks for updates, and drop in to have a chat or donate the next time you’re coming to a match at Roots Hall.
- This is their first season, so following and sharing their social media can really help the group to grow and do even more. You can also support their JustGiving crowdfunder.
- The foodbank has a collection day coming up at Roots Hall (2nd April v Notts County), which FSSF are supporting. Can you volunteer to help out on the day? Get in touch via [email protected]
- There’ll also be a raffle at the match, led by FSSF. Do you have something you could donate as a prize?
Read more about the ongoing support between Southend Foodbank, FSSF and Southend United, including what happened at the last donation day at Roots Hall and if you’re feeling inspired to get involved, offer your time, a raffle prize or donate food or cash at the next donation day on 2nd April vs Notts County.
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- Cost of living crisis: act for change before the Spring Statement
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The Bank of England’s inflation rate forecast for April 2022 is over 7% – so the planned 3.1% increase to Universal Credit, legacy benefits and housing costs will not keep up with the cost of living in real terms.
Trussell Trust are asking for your support with writing to your MP ahead of the Spring Statement on 23 March, to urge the Chancellor to dramatically re-think the 3.1% increase planned to benefits this Spring.
Recent research shows that one in three (33%) people receiving Universal Credit had more than one day in the last month where they didn’t eat at all or had only one meal, and a similar proportion have not been able to heat their home for more than four days across the last month because they couldn’t afford to.
This isn’t right.
Ask your MP to call on the Chancellor to urgently strengthen our social security system and bring benefits in line with the true cost of living. With your help, we can tell MPs of all parties ahead of the Spring Statement on 23 March, why the Chancellor urgently needs to act.
If you would like to write to your MP, Trussell have a page where you can easily do this online.
- Bank the Food app [free to install and use, £ cost of donations]
Bank the Food is a simple app that connects you to your nearest foodbank whenever you go shopping in a supermarket that has a foodbank collection point.
Install the app, add your foodbank. You can see the most needed items any time. Set up your notifications and when you go into a supermarket where you can donate to the foodbank your phone will ping and remind you to donate if you can, with the priority shopping list. You can also check for requests for other kinds of help, like volunteering time or cash collections. There is an option to track your donations so you can see your impact over time or work towards a donation goal.
Installing and using Bank the Food is completely free. Bank the Food started here in Southend and is now nationwide. You can listen/read interviews about the development of Bank the Food in Southend on Radio 2 with Jeremey Vine and on BBC Essex.
Find out more and download the app by visiting their website www.bankthefood.org/
- Share one thing from the list so far – a donation request, a call for change, our next event, an opportunity to get together and fundraise, a post from one of our social media accounts – or share this page and invite others to Spring into Action. Together we can fight hunger and end the need for foodbanks. [Free]
We are now halfway through our 40 ways to support your local foodbank. Have you found one thing you can do? Get it done and tell people, because more happens when everyone does a little bit together. Word of mouth, public opinion and community connections are all part of creating change and tackling hunger.