The local Food Parcels Project for Ash, Ash Vale, Tongham and Ash Green is appealing for Christmas Hamper items, toys and winter warmers for local families this Christmas.
Not everyone will be in a position to help this year, but if you can, we will be very thankful. Donations can be dropped off on or before Sunday 14th December at St Mary’s Church Vale Rd on Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays 9:30-12:30 or at The Chapel Wharf Rd on Wednesdays 9:00-14:00 or at other times by arrangement (please text 07730609446) THANK YOU!
Ideas for things to donate? Hot water bottles, warm socks, fluffy scarves, childrens toys, sweets and treats, cranberry sauce, mince pies, festive biscuits, Christmas cake, crackers, Christmas pudding, custard, evaporated milk, stuffing mix, gravy granules, chocolates, seasonal fruit and veg, tinned ham, christmas activity books, board games, crisps, festive toiletries… think about what makes your Christmas special – let’s share some of that Christmas joy!
The need is greater than ever this year, and we are likely to need parcels for over 100 families. We need your support please, to be able to help them all, and bring some wonderful festive cheer to every family in need.
If you like, you can download the ‘Bank the food’ App which lists suggestions and shows what items are most urgently needed. It’s a great way to keep in touch. You will find us listed as the Ash Villages Food Parcels Project.
Thank you everyone for your amazing help to make this happen. We can’t do it without you!
Thank you for your support, and may you be wonderfully blessed this Christmas.
A huge HARVEST THANK YOU to all at St Mary’s Ash Vale, for the wonderful foodbank donations from the Harvest Festival on Sunday.
We collected your gifts on Tuesday and they went out in the food parcels today, with some items left for the parcels on Friday. The Wednesday team fed 22 families with your generous donations today, some large families, some single people in need, food for 61 people in total. And more parcels will go out on Friday to other families too.
Thank you for your support! #AshVillagesFoodParcelsProject
Our web page has more info here: https://ash-vale.org.uk/foodparcels-2/
As Harvest approaches, please consider a donation to the Ash Villages Food Parcels Project to help us support families in need this winter. Can you manage a monthly donation? Regular giving helps us to plan ahead and gives us peace of mind that we can meet the needs of anyone who is struggling in our local community.
You can also choose to donate tins and packets of food here at St Mary’s. We have a donations box in the foyer by St Francis. Thank you to everyone who donates in this way too!
Please celebrate with us! Our foodbank team are overjoyed today, because the Ash Villages Food Parcels Team has received news that The National Lottery Community Fund will be supporting us this year! Our recent application has just been approved. Pop over and give the National Lottery Community Fund a like on facebook please to show our appreciation, hurrah! Here’s the link: https://www.facebook.com/TNLCommunityFund
This means a lot. In all seriousness, this funding will help the foodbank to thrive, so we can keep going and keep supporting eveyone who needs us in Ash, Ash Vale, Ash Green and Tongham for many months to come. It also means that donations by local people can make an even bigger difference – every tin you send us is a tin we don’t have to use funding for, so the grant can stretch even further and feed even more families for longer. Our hard working and dedicated volunteers are amazing. They tirelessly pack and deliver parcels, clean fridges, collect and sort donations, take referrals and respond to emergencies, check the stock and tidy the shelves, they are super stars! And it is thanks to your generous giving and this National Lottery Community Funding that the shelves are full and we can be here, ready to help. Thank you!
Are you in need? No-one in our community ever needs to go to bed hungry, just contact CAB, social services, DWP, local churches, school or other agencies and you can be referred to us.
Our lovely young Foodbank volunteers are a brilliant team. They come and help take in the foodbank stock on Thursday evenings, sort donations, bag up laundry pods and check the fridges. This week, they spent some of their foodbank time on these beautiful donations boxes for our foyer at St Mary’s and some more for The Chapel. Let’s encourage them and fill them up!
We have booked a double stall at the Ash Village Fair on the 28th June. Revd Neil will be doing his legendary pancakes and the Foodbank team are planning a bottle tombola. Can you spare a bottle and pop it in one of the donations boxes please?
Every item donated will go to help the Ash Villages Food Parcels Project, (https://ash-vale.org.uk/foodparcels-2/ ) either in a food parcel, or on the bottle tombola to raise funds for food and toiletries. Thank you for your support!
This week, we enjoyed a celebration tea party at the Chapel Peroject to celebrate 5 years of the Ash Villages Food Parcels Project. A lovely time was had by all, and thank you to everyone who baked, contributed, set up, served and cleared down. #TeamAwesome, as ever, much love to you all.
Who would have thought that a simple little Covid support project to help struggling families would become a fully fledged foodbank feeding 3331 people in 2024, and growing even more in 2025. Initially it was basic bread and veg – whatever we had donated – and over time we have fundraised and added more items, to make sure our food parcels give a good balance of nutritious items.
We have seen local needs growing and growing due to the cost of living, fuel crisis, cold winters, mental health crisis, unemployment, low incomes and rising rents. We cover Ash, Ash Vale, Ash Green and Tongham, and the population has grown here too, with over 2,000 more homes locally after all the new builds, so our local population has grown and some of our newest neighbours are in need too. We see you, we are here for you. We are proud to say that no-one in our community needs to go to bed hungry. If you have no food, and no money to buy any, call the church, the school, the GP, Citizens Advice, social worker, Guildford wellbeing team, or any other agency, and they can refer you to us asap for an emergency parcel.
More need in the community, means we need more help please! It’s hard to ask for donations when everyone is feeling the pinch… but here we are asking! The easiest way to make sure we have enough of each item on our shelves, is if our wonderful supporters donate funds so we can buy in bulk. If you would like to do this please consider a regular monthly donation, so we can budget carefully, and know that our community can always be fed. https://givealittle.co/c/7a47190c-ad4e-4cf9-8662-da844101a41c (donations link)
Another way to help is to donate the actual food and toiletries. There are collecting points for tins and packets at Ash Manor School, Ash Vale Co-op, at St Mary’s Church on Vale Road (in the foyer whenever they are open), or at The Chapel (on Wharf Road) on Wednesdays and Fridays 8:30-9:30 while the team are packing parcels. (Or contact us to arrange a time to drop things off 07730609446). If you’d like to know what we need the most, we have an App for that! ‘Bank the food’ is brilliant. https://www.bankthefood.org/
A huge thank you: We have had so many thank you messages from clients over the years it’s hard to choose the ones to share here. One couple cried with relief and gratitude – they had never needed help before and were so touched by the help they received. Another family said that we have helped them more than we will ever know. An elderly person was overjoyed to receive their parcel, and grateful that we were able to make a referral for other help from the warm hub toget her through the winter. One local mum was delighted to receive Christmas gifts for the children and then amazed to see that she had something for herself under the tree as well, her only present that year. Lots of people said a big thank you for the Easter eggs in their parcels last week, and we are always receiving lovely messages. Please know that every tin, every pack of pasta, every bag of laundry pods, or every pound you donate makes a real difference to a real family, right here in our community. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts.
We are grateful to everyone who donates, whether your donation is large or small, it makes a valuable difference. We also appreciate local stores and businesses, clubs and schools, churches and groups who support us with their kind donations too, which helps with an element of our parcels. Would you like to join them? Do get in touch.
And finally a huge thank you to the superstar team of volunteers past and present who make it all possible! They get up early to pack parcels, and stay up late to collect and sort donations. We have heroes that clean the fridges, dedicated delivery drivers, extra helpers at Christmas, champions who help raise funds, tireless helpers tidying, checking dates, taking phone calls, printing labels, making coffee, youth volunteers helping out, and all those many jobs that make it all work like a well oiled machine. We treasure each and every one of you! Thank you all.
A lovely 5 years of working together for good – here’s to many more!
Calling all food parcels volunteers past and present! The team is celebrating 5 years of the ash villages food parcels project! Open house for tea and cake at the chapel on Thursday 24th April 2-6pm, we would love to see you! Drop in any time! RSVP so we can cater, and you’re welcome to bring the kids / partners etc
Join us on Maundy Thursday 17th April 2025 for a bring & share supper as we remember the Last Supper. Doors open from 6pm for a 6:30pm start. All are welcome, bring a friend!
Please can we ask everyone to vote for St Mary’s with a blue token in the local Tesco each time you shop? Our “Fruit for Kids” project will enable us to put more healthy fruit in the foodbank parcels and also give out fruit at our toddler groups Little Lambs Library and Chapel Kids.
Please ask everyone you know to vote in-store with their blue token by Monday 31st March 2025. Every blue token helps. The more tokens we get, the more funding we stand to receive from Tesco for this simple but important project. Vote for us today!
