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Welcome to the Windsor Foodshare Newsletter covering the second quarter of 2024 (April - June). In this edition, we provide an update on the work that Windsor Foodshare is doing, share some of the fantastic stories from our fundraisers and donors and let you know about our current campaigns and appeals.

Our lovely manager, Sarah, is looking for a couple of drivers to deliver food parcels to peoples’ homes on Thursdays between 11:00 and 12.30.

Even if you can only commit to doing a couple of Thursday shifts per month, this would still be incredibly helpful.

If this is something that you might be able to help with, please get in touch with Sarah on manager@windsorfoodshare.org.uk.

Rain, rain stayed away (mostly!)

April 2024

This year we held our first ever sponsored walk to raise funds for Windsor Foodshare. On Saturday 27 April 2024, our walkers braved an unsettled morning to walk around the stunning Virginia Water lake.

Meeting at our bright green pavilion, our walkers sported lovely Foodshare rosettes, ensuring that this is a great awareness raising event as well as an invaluable chance to raise much needed funds.

As you can see from the photos, it was a fantastic morning, with lots of time to chat. Foodshare’s doggy followers also got a decent walk and a chance to meet new friends!

The rain held off and everyone made it around Virginia Water. So far we have raised over £10,000 pounds!

We are looking forward to making Loop the Lake our annual fundraising event. If you couldn’t make it this year, maybe you’ll be able to join us for Loop the Lake 2025!

A right royal collection

April - June 2024

Thank you so much to the fantastic residents at Castle View for their right royal donation (top left). They collected items to celebrate the King’s birthday. So lovely to see the donation dropped off by these three young ladies (top right) who regularly encourage other residents to collect and donate for Windsor Foodshare.

Foodshare also had a lovely visit from James and Nishma Hawker (bottom left). They saw our plea for tinned fish and brought an amazing donation.

Also, thank you so much to Charan Bambra for dropping in with a wonderful donation (bottom right). Charan had seen our shout outs for Cereal and was kind enough to go and do a shop for us.

It is always incredibly heartwarming to see the public response to our appeals. Thank you all so much for supporting Windsor Foodshare.

Our superstar students!

April - June 2024

This quarter, we’ve had visits from many of the wonderful local schools that support us. In May, it was lovely to have Eton Porny C of E First School volunteering with us (top left).

The children brought with them a food donation and then helped to sort and date the food for us. Thank you so much to St Edward's Royal Free Ecumenical Middle School for your donation of food (top right).

Also, thank you so much to the pupils from Dedworth Middle School for coming along to Windsor Foodshare and helping us with our work (bottom two photos). They were great volunteers for the day and tackled the day with great enthusiasm.  

They also brought with them a donation that they had been collecting at school. Looking forward to having you all back in the next school year.

Massive thanks to Helen Burton who is the driving force behind the food collections that are carried out at Dedworth Middle School.  You truly are an inspiration. Thank you for your amazing support.

Trevelyan’s trailblazers leading on

January - March 2024

Thank you so much to Trevelyan Middle School for their amazing donation of £1,344.95. They collected the money with a Christmas Jumper day. Our manager had the honour of visiting them in April to give students a talk on Windsor Foodshare during assembly.

This term Trevelyan Middle School have  also been collecting breakfast items to help Windsor Foodshare throughout the summer holidays.

In June, year 8 pupils made their final visit to Windsor Foodshare (as they will be moving on to new schools in September). It was the first visit though, for Emily who has been collecting cereals and other donations from all her neighbours and took them into school to add to the box.

Thanks to Ali, Zac, Freya, Emily, Muhammad and Alyzeh and all the Foodshare Ambassadors for all their hard work this year. Trevelyan Middle School are massive supporters of Windsor Foodshare and donate food to us on a regular basis.

Community kindness

January - March 2024

Windsor Foodshare is incredibly fortunate to have some great relationships with businesses around the area. With food collections, volunteering and fundraising, they help ensure we are stocked and able to help our clients. In this quarter, we’ve been helped by:

• De Vere Beaumont - in May, the team from De Vere Hotels’ De Vere Beaumont Estate came to volunteer with us and brought a much needed donation with them (top left).

• Otsuka Pharmaceuticals - the team at Otsuka UK have been collecting donations and were kind enough to drop them off in June (top right).

• Logitech - in June, Spencer dropped in with a donation for us from the team at Logitech (bottom left). Logitech employees’ have been collecting donations in their office.

• Groupe SEB - A great donation dropped in by Groupe SEB UK. They raised funds in their office and then purchased us two of the things that we were most short of (tinned meat and tinned vegetables). Pictured bottom right with our lovely trustee for Windsor Foodshare, Maria Hindmarsh.

Your One Wish - granted!

April - June 2024

A tower of tinned fruits! Stacks of sauces! A cornucopia of cereal boxes!

There is always something that Foodshare is running low on. That is when we send out appeals to the public. We are also helped by the amazing charity Your One Wish.

One of the things that this fantastic charity does is to raise funds from companies and then donate food to local food banks with the funds they have raised.

Once a month they ask our manager what the foodbank is short of and then, as if by magic, they send a supply of that much needed stock. In this period alone they supplied over 200 each of tins of fruit (April), jars of cooking sauces (May) and boxes of cereal (June).

Thank you so much to the companies that take part, to everyone who donated and to Your One Wish for making this happen!

Can you help with any of the items that we are currently running very short on?

• TINNED VEGETABLES - We do not have enough to supply our clients in coming weeks. We typically provide 300 cans a week as part of our food packages.

• EGG BOXES - We are very pleased to be able to provide eggs to our clients. But, to do that, we need egg boxes. Recently, we’ve had to buy these. Can you help by donating empty boxes?

• BEANS - We are currently running low on baked beans and other tinned beans. These are amongst the items that almost all clients ask for as part of their food packages.

Helping your kind donations go even further!

There are three really simple things that you can do to make sure that your extremely kind donations go as far as possible.

Join our campaign for fresh fruit and vegetables!

We are one of the few foodbanks that is able to supply fresh fruit and vegetables on a weekly basis. We need help to continue.

We feel strongly that our fruit and veg provision is vitally important. For some of our clients, this is the only fresh food they will get.

Last year, we spent over £21,000 a year on fruit and veg. With rising food prices, this bill sharply increased over the last six months.

The annual total is a large figure. But when you break it down over the people we help to feed (7,281 in 2022 alone), it works out to around £2.88 per person.

How you can help

You could sponsor a person to receive fruit and vegetables with a regular donation of

£15 a month. If this is too much, you could consider sponsoring them for one week a month (£3.50 a month).

One-off donations are also invaluable to help us to keep providing this much-needed fresh food.

How to donate

The easiest way to donate is via Just Giving. If you can, please remember to add gift aid as this gives us 25% on top of your donation!

www.justgiving.com/windsorfoodshare

Our other links

All of our other links are in one easy place - just click here for our linktree.