Record-breaking daily help planned
After many decades of running a foodbank it’s pretty rare to set new records, but our foodbank is going to do exactly that this Christmas. We’ve set ourselves the goal of providing 1,600 of our big bumper Christmas food parcels to deserving clients in the three days before December 25.
The record will come when we deliver 600 parcels on both the Monday and Tuesday (and 400 more to be delivered on the Wednesday). Normally we are maxed out providing 88 parcels a day, so 600 is amazing and something we have not achieved before.
But after finetuning our operation over the last few years, and with lots of preparation, we know we can do it.
It’s only when you think of what the Christmas food parcels include, how many people they will support, and what it takes to fill them, that it becomes clear what a big challenge this is for us.
Those 1,600 food parcels will feed up to 6,000 people meals over three days, including a celebration Christmas dinner. They will go to people we have worked with throughout the year and that we know will need the help at Christmas.
Our corporate volunteer teams started packing the standard nonperishable box (plus extras) at the beginning of October to make the numbers possible - that’s after a little hiccup in not having enough boxes, but after a call for help out to the city, the boxes flowed in.
In the Christmas parcel we add flour, sugar, custard powder to the staples. We also put in toothbrushes. Then comes the treats part, which includes things like chicken, mince, ham, reduced cream and onion dip, chocolate chip biscuits, jelly, gravy, lollies, sponge and chips. And whatever fresh veges we can add, especially our prison-grown ones (See story - Prisoners give back).
Creating a mountain of food parcels is one thing, delivering them is another. We have to get 600 people and their cars through our forecourt on each of those two days and that takes all our team, some smart traffic management … and a secret source of grunt for us when we need boxes moved fast.
For the last few years, military police from all three services have volunteered on our forecourt to do the heavy lifting to cars and we couldn’t be gladder to have them here.
But the special part of this Christmas activity, is about the people who come for help and leave with some Christmas joy.
Our foodbank team leader Kirsty sums up the beauty of our Christmas parcel days:
“It’s the joy of putting food into someone’s car. Their kids are excited because they see their parents happy and excited. It’s spontaneous and it feeds on itself. They see people caring, people working together, and good things happening. They glimpse the treats. It might be a humble joy, but it is joy at Christmas.”