Tag: #dONATIONS

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How to donate to St Mary’s and The Chapel

Hello and thank you for reading this! We hope that you are enjoying all the groups, services, projects and events at St Mary’s and The Chapel in Ash Vale. If you can spare a donation, or even commit to a regular monthly gift, we will be very grateful, as this all helps us to keep going and keep serving our community. Thank you for your support, it reallly matters!

Our online giving platform is ‘Give A Little’ and you can find our donations links here:

ST MARYS Online Donations https://givealittle.co/c/75npOYB3aZl4vFFBN2Ve3p

CHAPEL PROJECT Online Donations: https://givealittle.co/c/1FRdcqYwcZvAqaVoTGMTsA

PARISH GIVING SCHEME: Of course, if you prefer to use the Parish Giving Scheme service you can donate to St Mary’s by signing up with them here: https://www.parishgiving.org.uk/donors/find-your-parish/ash-vale-st-mary-aldershot/ Our church reference is PGS Parish Code: 170617008 (Guildford Diocese.)

CASH AND CHEQUES: If a good old fashioned donation in an envelope is more your style, please pop it in whenever we are open, and we will pass on any donations to our Treasurer Patrick Brown. If you want your donation to go towards a specific project or service please make a note on the envelope or on the back of your cheque, Otherwise it will go towards the general running costs of all our activities and projects. It is always a good idea to give us your phone number in the envelope too, just in case we need to check anything with you. Thank you!

GIFT AID: If you are able to add Gift Aid to your donation, please do! For every £1 you donate we then receive an extra 25p from the tax man, at no cost to you. It makes a big differeance, as it all adds up! If you are donating online there is a box to tick. If you are donating in other ways please email us on parishoffice@ash-vale.org.uk and our volunteer team will have a declaration form sent out to you as soon as we can.

BENEVITY – if your place of work is registered with Benevity, you can donate here for our community cafe and/or for the Ash Villages Food Parcels Project. Why not ask your colleagues to help us to? You can search for us by charity number 1152717. Thank you!

Huge thanks to all our family, friends, volunteers, community and supporters, Your time, talents and donations make all the difference. Thank you!

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What does the Food Parcels Project need? 

By Alexandra Sanderson 

We had a lovely enquiry today. A kind local resident keen to help the Ash Villages Food Parcels Project and wanting to know what items to give. He is not on social media, so needed a list that could be printed off to refer back to. I was delighted to oblige! 

Here is the list of the weekly items we use for a standard food parcel, to give you an idea of what you might donate: 

The tins we get through 30+ a week of each: 

Tomatoes / Sweetcorn / Baked beans / Tuna

Meat (curry or hotdogs or ham or mince etc)

Sweet (fruit / rice pud / custard etc)

Other staples we include every week are: 

Pasta (instant noodles are low cost to cook) 

Rice (microwave rice is low cost to heat)

Pasta sauce (again low cost to heat)

Tea / coffee / Sugar 

Uht milk & Cereal

Treats occasionally to bring a smile e.g. Biscuits / Jam / crisps

We also try to include fresh items to support healthier eating: 

Potatoes / Onions / Carrots / Apples / Eggs

Any of the above that you might like to donate would be much appreciated thank you. You could pick one item and donate a few of the same, or pick a couple of things from the list, or even pick one of each and donate the necessary for a whole weekly parcel. 

Alternatively you could choose to support with toiletries: & “Baby bank” items

Shower gel / Shampoo / Sanitary items / Soap

Nappies / baby wipes / Baby forumla / Baby food pouches

Laundry pods (we divide packs between families)

Pets: We also like to be able to give out cat food and dog food if people are able to donate those so that families can afford to keep much loved pets. 

Where to send things:

Donations can be dropped off at St Mary’s Church on Vale Rd, GU12 5JE whenever we are open. In the summer holidays Friday Cafe is open in August 10:00-13:00 and the church services are 10:30am-12:00.

You can also take donations directly to the team at the Chapel on Wharf Rd GU12 5AY, where we pack the parcels. The team is there packing parcels on Wednesdays and Fridays 8:45-9:45am or contact us to make other arrangements if these times don’t work for you. You can also choose to leave items in the community shed in our car park. Please clearly label the bag “Donation for the food parcels”.

Do you take donations of funds to? Yes please! If shopping is inconvenient we do also very gladly accept donations of funds. We can buy in bulk which keeps the cost down and makes your money go even further to feed more families.

You can donate by cash or cheque at St Marys’s church Ash Vale, which our Treasurer allocates to the restricted fund for food parcels – just write on the envelope or on the back of the cheque what the donation is for and Patrick ensures it goes in the righ account.

We can send you the details for a bank transfer or regular standing order if you prefer.  This just requires you to put “Food Parcels” as the reference so again Patrick can assign the funds to the right project.

For immediate online donations we have a church account with the “Give a little” donations platform and the link for the Food Parcels project is here: https://givealittle.co/campaigns/7a47190c-ad4e-4cf9-8662-da844101a41c  this platform allows you to sign up for regular giving, or a one-off donation, whichever you would like to do.

Whatever you decide to do – thank you very much for your support!

If you’d like to know more please Contact: 07730609446