Dear friends and supporters of the West Somerset Food Cupboard
We were blown away by the generosity of donors of both food and funds in the lead up to Christmas! It meant that every single request for food support could be met with a prompt and generous response. Especially helpful were those who were able to get their contributions to us by the first week of December – thank you!
- Thank you if you were one of the local churches, community groups, schools, choir, hospital, ambulance station, housing association etc who collected food and/or organised fund-raising events for us and/or donated funds;
- thank you if you organised village soup lunches and/or coffee mornings and donated the funds to us;
- thank you if you own or are a staff member in a shop, office or estate agency who organised a food collection or raffle for us;
- thank you if you were one of the individuals or businesses who went shopping for us using our list of wanted items and delivered them to us;
- thank you if you were one of the individuals who gave us money and/or gift cards to top up supplies;
- thank you if you were the person who supplied all the festive bags for our Christmas food parcels;
- thank you if you are a staff member or volunteer from one our local partner agencies who delivered extra food parcels in the lead up to Christmas so that no-one need struggle;
- thank you if you are in the Dynamics choir and serenaded us with carols at the final Pantry of 2022 (listen in the comment to our Facebook post of 21st Dec);
- and thank you to all the West Somerset Food Cupboard volunteers who pulled out all the stops to make sure that all the food donated was quickly sorted, packed and distributed to those who needed it most.
We had a very busy morning packing up the Christmas food parcels assisted by High Sheriff of Somerset Jennifer Duke who has been a great support and encouragement through a very busy time.
In December, 175 regular Emergency Food parcels were distributed across the local community as well as 161 Christmas food parcels, so 336 in total that month. The total in 2022 was 1445 as compared with 1305 in 2021.
The Local Pantry took a break on the 27th. We are excited to get underway again on Tuesday January 3rd, and we look forward to continuing to reduce food waste by making surplus food accessible and affordable.
Our emergency food cupboards are mostly well stocked for the new year, but if you’re able to help us top up the items that we are a bit low on, here’s the list for January. We’d prefer not to receive leftover mince pies or Christmas puddings, or any out-of-date food items – thank you for understanding.
Wishing you a Happy and Healthy New Year from the West Somerset Food Cupboard team
Any non-perishable food items are gratefully received. This month we would really appreciate:
- Individual desserts (custard/fruit etc)
- Individual porridge pots
- Tinned cold meat
- Small jars coffee
- Small bottles squash
- Tinned hot dogs
- Sweetcorn
- Rice
