Another amazing month that has seen Halloween and Bonfire night
come and go. And Black Friday and the Festive season
just around the corner.
But as the dark nights and rain settle in Trevor Williams and the team have been hard at work ensuring those that cannot access the hard working Swale Foodbanks do not miss out. Since we started this project in July we have seen a month on month increase in demand with October being a 400% increase from July. That’s over 180 people fed, with almost 50% of them being children. We forecast that this is going to increase further as we progress into 2024.
None of this care and help would be possible without the continued support of Sittingbourne Morrisons Community, Cliff Priceat Morrisons Distribution, The Jenny Wren, The Beauty of Bath, Axis Europe and members of our facebook group. Thankyou all from us all at Swale Community Care Project and the people of Swale.
The team have again had great fun fundraising at Faversham Market – many thanks to those that have donated tombola prizes, we have managed to sell out by midday on each visit.
We are expanding this theme with stalls at the Sittingbourne Christmas Lights and Sleigh Rounds this Saturday and Sheerness Town Councils Christmas Event on the 2nd December. We are looking forward to our children focussed Tombola’s so please come and see our stall, have a go and have a chat with our team – we’d love to talk through our plans for supporting the community. Many thanks to the numerous donators of pre-loved teddies. We are sure that these will be a great hit and they will find new loving homes.
We were able to make the most of the hospitality from Stewart and the Swale Stroke Group this month – a big thankyou to their warm welcome and time to run through our services and listen to how we may be able to support their members in the future.
Next week we are out with Swale Councils Reset – Housing options team in their annual rough sleepers count. Hopefully the extra support will enable more areas to be checked and more help to be provided by the team to those in need.
Over the next few months we will be looking at venues and equipment for our community café and community fridge as we have now started securing funding to enable us to provide more services to the community. Its been great to get positive feedback from so many corners of the community and other community focussed organisations. Lets see what Santa
can manage for Christmas.
To add to another great month of collaboration with new parties and continuation of established working relationships we have the following thankyou’s to share:
– Sittingbourne, Milton & District Scouts for their Christmas food drive and festive parcels – we are looking forward to getting the Christmas Jumpers out in December!
– Sittingbourne Morrisons Community / Sal Candy for the continued foodbank support.
– Claire Fosbeary and Asda Sittingbourne
– Sarah Samuel Childminding for the harvest festival food gifts
– Lorrae Mannering and the Axis Europe team
– Mandy at Swale Community and Voluntary Services for the training support
– Luke at Sheppey Graphics for continuing his amazing support for our advertising media