Somer Valley Foodbank

The team at the Somer Valley Foodbank have recently been focused on moving to their new warehouse. Unfortunately, they had to leave their larger one for reasons beyond their control, but fortunately, a benefactor found them a new one, which is great as warehouse space is at a premium these days. The team are now settled and have devised new procedures to ease the smooth running of the warehouse.

Once again, the generosity of the community has been fantastic and the Foodbank collected 1.5 tonnes of food at their Tesco collection. Besides that, there have been several donations of food and the churches in the area have provided items from the most wanted list.

There have also been several monetary donations, which will go towards the cost of the new warehouse. There was even a mystery donation of £500, which was amazing.

There was the usual Christmas rush of clients, but the team were able to fulfil all the vouchers that people brought and clients even had bags of Christmas goodies that we were able to put together thanks to the donations given by a local school, Cadbury’s and local businesses. Thankfully most of the Christmas items have been handed out and there are no left over mince pies or Christmas puddings!

They are working with the B&NES Affordable Food Network to help people in crisis and are behind the Council initiative of ‘money first’ which aims to provide ways for families to have enough money so that they do not need to depend on free food handouts. Over the coming year, the team will also be organising courses for volunteers, so they know how best to direct people to other organisations to give them help to get out of their crisis.

With the help of the community, Somer Valley Foodbank can continue to provide the emergency service of food parcels to those in need across the Somer Valley area, donating food or money.

The Somer Valley Foodbank has a distribution centre in Midsomer Norton and you can find this at The Salvation Army Hall in Midsomer Norton on Monday from 12 - 2pm.

For more details, contact Paul Woodward on info@somervalley.foodbank.org.uk or visit the website at www.somervalley.foodbank.org.uk