An incredible £7,000 was donated to foodbanks across the communities where our customers live in December last year.
The money was split between ten community organisations providing food bank support. While the donations were greatly received, it came with the knowledge that without funding like this, at least 1,200 people would frighteningly go without food.
We recently caught up with the food banks and community larder in Northamptonshire, to see what impact the donation has had on their much-needed services over the last few months.
Our team were joined by Aaron Services, our gas servicing partners in Northamptonshire, who raised the money and let Futures decide where it should go.
Aaron Services generously built up a pot of money for each time Futures successfully scheduled a free gas safety check at a customers’ home on a first attempt, which resulted in an amazing £3,500 being raised.
Keith Taylor, Operations Director at Aaron Services said: “Seeing in person the work these organisations do was very humbling. I’m so pleased that through our working relationship with Futures we were able to provide some help to the local community which we work in.”
Angela Gee, Senior Pastor at Vineyard Community Church has run the Daventry Food Bank with her husband since 2010. Angela said: “The donation was an absolute blessing and took our breath away, we really weren’t expecting it.
We’re getting rising referrals week on week, and this money meant we could buy additional food to support the families referred. We were able to do top-up shopping, which can be between £250 and £300 at a time. Last week alone we did four top-up shops because the need is so great.”
The dedicated couple work with a team of 19 volunteers to support over 100 individuals and families each month. Angela said: “Food banks are the only organisation where we can say the day we finally close our doors, is when we can officially say we’ve done a job well done.”
Re:store Northampton originally started as a food bank in 2009 and has expanded to provide a wide range of services for the community.
Alex Turtle, Funding Manager at Re:store said: “We want to thank Futures and Aaron Services for their extremely generous donation. This will be used between our food bank and Grow Baby projects which provide emergency essentials for people.
The neighbourhood we’re located in is among the top 7% most deprived areas across the country, so we have significant needs for services like ours in the community. We know these are hard times, and some are having to choose between heating their homes and buying essentials. Generous support like this means we can take away some of these pressure from people.”
Hope Centre’s Community Larder in Daventry opened in July last year and is a sustainable way for the community to buy food at an affordable price. People pay £5 or £10 a week in exchange for food worth triple or quadruple this amount.
Mason Smith, volunteer at Hope Centre’s Community Larder said: “The Southbrook estate is a community where not a lot of people get noticed. Yet the fact we have a community centre running a community larder and receiving donations like this is amazing.
The main thing is people will be able to be fed. We’ll be able to support them better and make sure they’re getting the best quality of life that they deserve.”
We’re incredibly thankful at Futures for the remarkable amount raised by Aaron Services. Along with J Tomlinson’s donation and our hard-working colleagues ensuring the gas services are booked, it’s meant thousands of people from Derbyshire down to Northamptonshire have had access to essential items.
Bringing the community together is what team Futures is passionate to do. We want to support giving back to the areas where our customers live and understand the importance of community projects like food banks and larders.
