Events
One Can Foodbank Updates
January Update
We have a new volunteer co-ordinator! Welcome to the wonderful Kate – an answer to prayer. If you would like to volunteer for One Can Trust please email her at kate.onecantrust@live.co.uk
Kate will be organising pick ‘n’ pack sessions at the bank, filling bags ready for delivery. She also co-ordinates the volunteers who deliver food parcels.
We delivered the equivalient of a parcel a day in December – 31! This was our busiest month yet – thanks to everyone who helped pick ‘n’ pack and deliver. We hae now fed over 430 people and delivered over 180 parcels.
Wycombe District Community Champion Awards
Big news – One Can Trust (and Sarah Mordaunt) were awarded the Runner up Place in the Wycombe District Community Champion Awards last night! This was an award in the ‘Healthly Communities’ category – the award is for making a positive contributionto life in the Wycombe district! Well done Sarah and One Can Trust :)
Our 6 month Anniversary
It’s official that at our six month anniversary we are proud to have
– delivered 100 parcels
– fed 240 children and adults in the Wycombe and surrounding area
– received 5,500 donated items of non-perishable food from schools, churches and individuals from across the district
– partnered with 20+ agencies working with people “in-crisis”
– a great working relationship with Big Yellow and Enterprise Van Rental, Wycombe Homeless Connection, Dorcas and Central Aid
BUT… now we need you to volunteer and send us your completed form.
Update – Harvest collections
We are so grateful to the following organisations and groups, who between them donated almost 5000 items during Harvest celebrations this autumn. Thank you so very much.
A particular thank you must go to Little Kingshill Combined School who put on an entire assembly about One Can Trust Foodbank. A video of their One Can Can song is posted with permission.
Little Marlow School & Church
All Saints Church, High Wycombe
St Birinus and St John’s Church
Flackwell Heath Girls Brigade
The Mary Towerton School
Little Kingshill Combined School
Bookerhill School
Cuzron CofE Combined School
Highworth County Combined School
Prestwood Infant School
Manor Farm School
Stokenchurch Methodist
St Michael & St Mary’s Church Beaconsfield
Wesley Methodist, High Wycombe
St Andrew’s Church Playgroup, High Wycombe
St Andrew’s Church, High Wycombe
St Mary & St George
St Marys Church, Marlow Bottom
Salvation Army, high Wycombe
Carrington School, Flackwell Heath
Princes Risborough Guides, Rangers & Brownies
and anyone else we may have not got on our list!
Bucks Free Press Article
We’re in the Bucks Free Press Our first real coverage in any press so thanks to Liz Cooley who came along to Little Kingshill School with us during Harvest week.
Harvest
We have been generously donated many Harvest collections from schools and churches – and there is more to come! A more detailed update is to follow but we want to thank:
Highworth County Combined School
Little Kingshill Combined School
The Mary Towerton School
Cuzron CofE Combined School
Little Marlow School & Church
All Saints Church, High Wycombe
Flackwell Heath Girls Brigade
Princes Risbourough Guide District
and so many more…..
Volunteers
Our volunteer job descriptions and registration forms are now online on our One Can Volunteer page. We have been overwhelmed by the generosity of those offering to get involved. Thank you.
A new and bigger Bank!
03/10/2011 Stop Press: One Can Foodbank officially moved into bigger premises within Big Yellow Storage this afternoon. We were prepared to pay a small weekly rental but God sorted it so the Area Manager said “no you can have it for free!” Just give us some free advertising – so here you are Big Yellow Storage – We Love You xx
Keep in touch
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@onecantrust |
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www.facebook.com/onecantrust |
Autumn 2011
Time for another update! Firstly thank you to everyone who has donated, talked about us, prayed and helped us in anyway. We have had an incredible few months we want to share with you, as well looking forward to the autumn and winter.
One Can has had an amazing summer when we continued to meet professional organisations to let them know about One Can Food Bank and how we are here to help their clients. We now have working partnerships with the YMCA, Sure Start centres, Area Health Visitors, the Police, Wycombe Women’s Aid, Smart CJS, Bucks Family Info Service plus loads more as well as working with town wide charities such as Wycombe Homeless Connection (with whom we will be co-campaigning with in 2012) as well as the baby clothes charity the Dorcas Trust from Holy Trinity Church in Hazelmere.
There has been increasing news coverage of foodbanks in the past few months in the national press with the wider benefits beginning to be recognised – that we don’t just provide food, but we’re helping build community spirit, reduce crime and forge relationships. As we move towards winter we see people who benefit cuts are really starting to bite. Increases in fuel prices will start to show as the winter starts as people turn on their heating. Our shaky economy continues to cause uncertainty and is already resulting in more job losses. Unemployment has bounced back up again in the third quarter of the year with more young people out of work. With inflation going up dramatically more than incomes, those in employment are also seeing their wages being stretched very thinly. This all leads to people not able to feed themselves or their families and in turn the amount of our delivered parcels are increasing week by week.
And so at our first Trustee’s meeting this summer we have determined to focus on increasing our stocks and raising awareness of the need to donate food to the bank. As churches and schools think about Harvest word of mouth has helped One Can as every day someone is approaching us to run an event or make a donation.
One such organisation is The Princes Risborough Guiding District who collected over 100 cans in one evening and are planning a week long food drive. We have spoken to the Trefoil Guild in Wycombe who kindly made financial donations to us. Our One Can Help event at Wycombe District Council collected over 250 cans. We have awareness events lined up at local Mother’s Unions, as well as local churches, schools and businesses over the next couple of months. So we are out and about busy giving talks and meeting people who want to help One Can and change a life for the better!
We have received a number of grants and have been able to equip our storage box with shelving, lovingly put up by a volunteer. A specific financial gift was given to be used to copyrighting our logo and branding which came only a couple of hours after the Trustees prayed for exactly that! Bucks Community Foundation gave us money to put towards building our website as well as buying storage boxes and racking, a printer and a mobile phone. The Deanery gave us money for start up costs and we’ve had over £200 in cash donations. Praise the Lord.
BUT Speaking of volunteers – lots of people have approached us to get involved – wow and thank you! We are now getting to the point where we need you and will be contacting everyone shortly to let you know our plans for volunteer involvement. We do not want anyone to be disappointed if you haven’t been given a job yet – we are scoping how to best use our volunteers and as we grow and step out into more places to collect food we will definitely need you!
So with Harvest just around the corner we are going in to local schools to speak about the Foodbank and receiving their harvest collections! We printed 1000 shopping lists this week and have a full diary during October to visit churches and schools in Wycombe and Marlow to speak about the food bank at their Harvest services and we have been told to expect to receive donations of both food and money! This picture shows the amazing donation from Little Marlow CE School and local church who collected and displayed their donation in St John the Baptist last weekend and then shared it between One Can and Women’s Refuge. Thank you Little Marlow village community.
If you are a member of St Andrew’s Church, …. keep an eye out for our shopping list at church or here on the website and remember to bring along your donation on 16th October to our own celebration services.
Thank you again for all your prayers, help and donations. We really are “changing lives for the better” in Wycombe.
July 2011
So many amazing things happening for the Foodbank this month!
Last week was our busiest yet for handing out parcels – 4 alone on Friday feeding over 15 people. The agencies and organisations we work alongside are really spreading the word and this means requests are going through the roof!
We’ve got a bunch of meetings lined up with Sure Start, various branches of the PCT and health visitors and the YMCA as well as having already spoken to the Deanery Synod, some Wycombe schools and other health visitors. Praise God!
News got around about the break in at church and people have been so generous in offering replacement food and money. Churches near and far have been in touch offering food and money – thank you!
We moved the Foodbank itself to Big Yellow Storage where is it entirely secure. Big Yellow have been amazing – and have even offered their reception to be an official drop off point for food for the bank. We hope to officially launch that soon. It is important people can drop off their food whenever and wherever is convenient to them so we are very grateful. We hope to have more drop off points sorted soon to facilitate this.
The One Can Help event at Bucks County Council, our first, was a great success with the employees bringing in over 350 items for the bank. This week we’ve had an event running at Wycombe District Council and we’re hopeful for matched success!
Some fundraising opportunities have been highlighted to us and we’ve been blessed with a few grants from various organisations. Money is going towards start up costs, setting up One Can Help events, as well as buying some specific foodtypes that we may not have had donated and sometimes need at short notice such as halal food, baby food, nappies….
Harvest is already on people’s minds and we’ve been offered some collections already! We’re contacting schools to see if they will consider us for some of the Harvest food they collect, 45 letters went out this week!
So, we have 2 things we are focussing on – increasing the amount of food donations coming in and raising awareness so food can go where it is needed. Keeping the balance is what it is all about and we’re learning fast! Thank you to every person who has bought food, helped in any way and importantly has prayed!