The Ash Villages Food Parcels Project team would like to say a big THANK YOU to the lovely 1st Ash Vale Beavers! We are super grateful for all your wonderful donations, which filled up the donation boxes at St Mary’s on Tuesday.
All these things that you donated will go out in the Food Bank parcels next week, and make a big difference to local families in need of a bit of help at this time.
It was great fun visiting you too, and we discovered that you are all very good at Kims Game! You remembered lots of the things we had in the food parcel box. I wonder if your friends in the Monday group will enjoy this game too?
Thank you too for the beautiful Harvest pictures. We will be sure to display them as part of the Harvest decorations at St Mary’s. The church is celebrating Harvest Festival on Sunday 6th Otober this year, all welcome at the 10:30 service, and we will have refreshments afterwards. Those of you who like to get creative are welcome to come and help decorate the church on the Saturday morning too, it’s lots of fun! See you there.
The Ash Vale Community Fridge and Ash Villages Food Parcels Project team have some great news this week! We will be receiving short dated items from the 2 local Co-ops on Saturdays going forward, saving even more good food from being wasted. This is in addition to the donations we already receive regularly on Tuesdays and Thursdays. What a great way to stop waste!
If you’d like to visit the Community Fridge and pick up some free food to save it from being wasted, it’s open 24/7 in our Community Shed at The Chapel, Wharf Rd, GU12 5AY. First come first served. (Remember to update the red folder so we can track how much food we are saving from the bin!) please only take what you can definitely use, so everyone can share and nothing is wasted.
Got more than you need? You can also donate your own surplus food, as long as it is sealed in its original packaging, and in date (or fresh from the allotment!) Please update the red folder with date & weight when you donate, so we can track how much food is saved from the bin.
Did you know? From June 2023-December 2023 the Community Fridge alone saved over 1000kg food from being wasted! Thank you to everyone who uses the fridge, and to all our amazing donors and volunteers.
Questions? Contact us on foodparcels@ash-vale.org.uk
Foodbank referrals: Please call our project manager to make a referral on 07730609446
We have been offering support for the local community in a number of ways during lockdown. We had always collected for the Farnham Foodbank, but we have also been supporting local families in need as we have heard about needs and through the school. We have been amazed at the donations both of food and of money, and it has made a real difference.
We were also involved in coordinating a response in lockdowns and have helped with prescriptions, moving bins and a number of other needs for our neighbours.
We would love to look at this moving forward – watch this space!
Contact: Revd Claire clairefholt@hotmail.com
St Peter’s Ash: Care and Share Shelf
The current pandemic has been a difficult time for many people. We all want to help. Outside St. Peter’s church we have a Care and Share shelf where anyone can take food that they need or leave something to help a neighbour.
If you would like to donate, tinned and packaged food, long life milk, tea and coffee are very popular. We try to put out enough to make a decent meal. It is topped up daily. Items can be placed on the shelf or left at the Rectory door. Contact: Barbara Rose 07761808727
Fun, food and friendship at St Mary’s and The Chapel
Aren’t we lucky that Revd Neil is amazing with food? Not only has he served socially distanced teas in the vicarage garden, and pop-up take-away pancakes from the shed when regulations allowed it, but now he has built a huge pizza oven in the vicarage garden, turning outdoor meetings into a festival of flavour!
Look out for kids in the kitchen too! During the winter, Neil teamed up with Anna and Charlie to do ‘St Mary’s junior bake-off’ & stories on Zoom with some of the kids. It was huge fun, messy at times, and they even had a dance-off while their creations were in the oven. The learning has definitely stuck—one of our 9yo girls remembered the recipe by heart and made an extra batch of cakes the next morning! (Ed.—Quick, put her name down on the church coffee rota!) Now that school is back, it’s over to Alex and the Chapel Kids toddler group who are busy planting up the Chapel garden with incredible edibles. Watch this space — they are literally growing their own fruit snacks!
Now it’s getting serious: Our very own vicar is running the Chapel Project Cooking School! Fareshare and Tesco (who give us a lot of our ‘on its last date’ fresh items for the local food parcels) have created a community chefs cooking school project. We jumped at the chance to join in and now have 15 families & community cooks signed up to zoom in and cook along, learning about nutrition, kitchen skills and producing some very scrummy dinners. We love the recipes Jamie Oliver has lined up for us, and it’s a lot of fun. Cooking along at home is fab, because everyone can see how to do things in their own kitchen. Ever wondered how to create a rainbow chilli, fry fabulous fishcakes or learn some nifty knife skills? We have been doing just that!
A huge thank you from all of us to Neil, and we can’t close without thanking Vicki Fox, an amazing local chef who has been instrumental in sourcing quality ingredients, making up doorstep delivery kits for those who need them, and building our confidence with variations and top tips on the Zoom sessions too.
Congratulations! Community Heroes Award for The Ash, Ash Vale & Ash Green Coronavirus Support Group
We have some seriously amazing people involved in the local Ash, Ash Vale & Ash Green Coronavirus Support Group. They are simply the best, and guess what? The Mayor of Guildford has recognised the team with a Community Heroes award! Congratulations go to everyone involved and especially Carla Morson who leads the group.
During lockdown, the team took on delivering care calls, prescriptions and shopping to people having to isolate or shield. St Mary’s also joined forces with the COVID Group to create a local Food Parcels Project, delivering food to those struggling under the financial impacts of the pandemic. The recipients are from all walks of life, and our delivery list is everchanging, as people’s circumstances change in the wake of the covid crisis. As we write this there are 32 families on the list this week. (If you’re struggling and need a food parcel you can call or text 07843 489796 or 07730 609446)
The COVID group is still going strong, helping local people and bringing the community together. It’s not too late to join in! Contact us to get involved.
We are always grateful for donations too., either store cupboard food and toiletries or donations via ‘give a little’ to help buy store cupboard items and toiletries: The donations link for online giving is: https://bit.ly/33LT1SAThank you for your support.
