Good afternoon to you all,

Things are a little less manic this week, although our Warehouse team may disagree!

As we have been low on essential items we have had to purchase 3 pallets of Tinned chilli, which our Warehouse team need to sort and negotiate around, whilst receiving harvest donations. It is a fun time of year where our Warehouse Manage Ceri has a daily conundrum of where to stack everything.

Huge Thanks to our van crew Richard and Andy, who got the lovely job of taking 2 pallets worth over to our storage container. Hopefully your arms aren't aching too much today!

A huge Thank You to our friends at CDOT Voices who held a fundraising concert on our behalf that raised £359, Thank you to Helen for organising and all that were able to support the event. A lovely evening whilst raising some funds

Being part of the Trussell network we regularly review our priorities and adjust them to suit the needs of our community in Thurrock.

The new Trussell strategy is 

Together for Change 2025 – 2030

Please see the details below
Five years ago, Trussell launched their first strategy. Much has happened since then, with food banks at the forefront of the changes and challenges we have experienced as a society.

Alongside the vital support provided day in and day out to people across the UK we have seen our collective impact grow. We at Thurrock have developed innovative practical help provided to people through our referrals process with Kate, helping ensuring that referral agencies are giving the support they should as well as helping with basic items, Duvets, Pillows, kettles, toasters, cutlery and cooking utensils

While so much has changed we also know that some things remain constant. Our deep commitment to our vision, our values, and the urgency of our mission continue to guide us.

Strategic priorities

Trussll have now developed our strategic priorities for 2025-30 to work towards our collective vision for a UK without the need for food banks.

The strategy has been designed hand in hand with food banks in the Trussell community, our lived experience partners and our staff team. We are grateful to everyone who so generously participated in this; the fresh insights, different approaches and testing of existing ways of thinking have been invaluable.

The strategy provides a shared framework within which we can develop local plans of action and access support to achieve these goals.

Today, Together, Forever
Our new strategy encompasses the three vital aspects of the work we are doing together:

Ending Hunger Today: supporting people with a warm welcome, emergency food, practical support and advice. 
Ending Hunger Together: working  with others to persuade and enable them to play their part in ending hunger. 
Ending Hunger Forever: pushing for long-term changes in society to tackle drivers for the need of foodbanks. 

Over the past few weeks as part of the Harvest initiative I have had the privilege to go into some of our local schools and speak about our work. I never fail to be amazed at the interest and great questions. The best todate is " How does what you do make the world a better place". It certainly gives all of us adults something to think about.

We have some important store collections coming up to help boost our stock levels as we 13% down on donations, compared to the same time last year.

This weekend we are at Sainsbury Chafford Hundred, the team will be there from 10:00am until 3:00pm, if you are there please pop in and say hello.

The next collection at ASDA on Friday 24th and Saturday 15th October is where we really do need the help: We are really struggling with the Friday 

We have two volunteers for Friday 9 - 11am and sadly  no one else for the rest of day

For Saturday we have a team from 9 - 1pm and two volunteers from 1-3:00pm. If you can spare an hour to come along and support us it would be very much appreciated.

As stock remains low we are still appealing for donations as the demand is continuous.  We still have some low stocks on some of our most basic items that are required to make up a food parcel. These items are:

Cordial/ Squash

Fruit Juice
Soups (meat & Vegetable)
Desserts (Custard, Rice Pudding, Jellies, Sponge Puddings)
Mashed Potato
Biscuits
Tinned Fish
Chocolate
Coffee

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

Have a good week