Good afternoon,

I hope you all enjoyed the long Easter weekend,

Despite it being a shorter week we are still quite busy across our centres.

demonstrating there are still genuine people struggling to afford the essentials.

It is good that our teams are on hand to talk to people to ensure they are receiving the help they need.

A busy day yesterday meeting people at our Ockendon centre, and it is good to see some that are moving on in their journey and starting to see them coming out of their situation and their reliance on a foodbank.

We then went off to see our colleagues at Harlow Foodbank and Bounty Club, Wow what an operation! Whilst they still operate a foodbank in the traditional sense, they have their bounty club (Community Supermarket) running alongside.  

They have been given a former BHS/ Sainsbury's supermarket in the shopping centre by the council and they are providing a community supermarket at low cost for the community of Harlow! 

Whilst we don't want to replicate that in Thurrock BUT it certainly demonstrates there is an opportunity for us to share some of excess stock with the community through a pantry operation. We continue to explore what that looks like for us in Thurrock, so if you have any thoughts or ideas or want to explore this opportunity further with us please do contact us.

Our team is at Sainsburys Chafford Hundred this weekend, so if you are in the area please pop in and say hello to the team.

As the demand remains, it has been a fairly busy week across our centres, we still have some lower stocks on some of our most basic items:.

These items are:Tinned Meat

Squash
Long Life Milk
Custard
Packet Mash
Desserts

We really value your support with any donations whether it be by a financial donation or a food donation, we really do appreciate any donation, however large or small, as the saying goes. "Every Little Helps" It all goes towards our work seeking to bless the community of Thurrock

If you require any further information or would to discuss any aspect of our work in more detail, please do not hesitate to contact me,

Thank you so much for your support. It means so much to us.