Good afternoon,

It is with great sadness that I share the news that our long term volunteer Margaret Watts, sadly passed away yesterday 19th September at around 5:00pm. 

Margaret has been a stalwart of Thurrock Foodbank since it started in July 2012.Margaret  worked in the Warehouse in Garron Lane, and then moved over to our current Warehouse in Chase Road making up food parcels and sorting donations. Margaret has manned stalls, helped at store collections and upto just a few weeks ago was making tea and coffee for us at our Grays Distribution Centre, where she will be greatly missed by our team. 

Margaret loved a packet of "Wotsits"; it didn't matter if they were slightly out of date, Margaret didn't want to make a fuss, she just got on with the task in hand, always with a smile on her face.

Back in October 2024 we were delighted that Margaret was enrolled in the Thurrock Mayors Roll of Honour, alongside our long term volunteers Glynis and Derek in recognition for her work at Thurrock Foodbank. Margaret will be missed by us all and we hold Helen, Alan, Maggie and the family in our thoughts and prayers at this sad time.

Annoyingly, as many of you are aware, our Instagram account got hacked BUT, "The Boys are Back in Town" with a new account, PLEASE FOLLOW US AT THE LINK BELOW.

https://www.instagram.com/insights/media/3967217005874696201/

To put a smile on our faces, the children and teachers at Quince Tree Day Nursery in South Ockendon have made this poster to help promote donating to food banks and helping people in need, with such a clever use of vegetables! 

As our public food donations are down, we are looking to boost our donations, with some more store collections being arranged. If you can spare some time as an individual or as a group please do contact Helen, Admin@thurrock.foodbank.org.uk

Store Collections:

Morrisons Grays - Monday 14th - Sunday 20th September

Asda Tilbury - Friday 18th and Saturday 19th September 

Tesco Lakeside - Friday 25th September 

We are planning to run the collections each day from: 10am - 4pm.

Fundraising:

Unfortunately our individual donations are down, so we are looking and ways to increase donations.

You can help increase Thurrock Foodbank’s entries into easyfundraising’s giveaway to win a £5,000 donation – every new supporter who joins is an entry!

Sign up before midnight 23rd August, it’ll only take two minutes:
https://join.easyfundraising.org.uk/thurrock-foodbank/h3qf2o/c2s/J1YccjD6/CE942/textcopy/

A reminder:

Our friends at Grays Methodist Church are hosting a fun day this Saturday 22nd August from 11:00am

They will have an entertainer, soft play, Inflatable games, face painting, craft tables and a fully equipped gaming bus, hook a duck etc. All the activities are completely free.Food will be available to Purchase on the day.

Pete Newall