Could you be an 'Aylesbury Foodbank Street Champion' and house a collection cabinet outside your home?
Once the cabinet is in place, you can either deliver any donations to the foodbank yourself, or arrange collection via a dedicated email address. The scheme is the brain child of Andy Rotherham, a trustee at Aylesbury Foodbank. You can read his story below.
"The idea for the cabinets started because my neighbours here in Ramworth Way found out I was volunteering at Aylesbury Foodbank and they started giving me food donations to take in. So they didn't feel the need to ring the doorbell every time we placed a box outside on the driveway. However the amount of donations were increasing, to the point that the biggest box we could find was no longer fit for purpose.
I therefore took it upon myself to build a cabinet out of recycled pallet wood, with felt roofing donated by a neighbour and branded with an Aylesbury Foodbank vinyl sign.
We delivered letters to all the neighbours in Ramworth Way and adjacent closes, explaining what we were doing, that the cabinet was there and that donations could be left in it 24/7.
The Community has really pulled together. During 2022 we donated 1.4 tonne. This will obviously have had a tangible effect on the total for The Mayors Ten Tonne Challenge.
Having seen the success of our own cabinet I floated the idea of building more and rolling them out across the area. The Foodbank Management Team and Trustees green-lighted the project.
A group of 4 of us neighbours got together and we started by gathering pallets, breaking them down and de-nailing.
Since then we have been working tirelessly in our spare time to complete the challenge of building 5 more cabinets. The employer of one of the team was kind enough to donate the cost of the paint and hardware. The roofing felt was donated for free too.
We have just completed the project and decided that a launch at our Ramworth Way Coronation Street Party would be the perfect occasion to do so. As of yesterday 4 of the 5 new cabinets have been allocated. They are going to houses in Bedgrove, Watermead, Weston Turville and Aylesbury Old Town.
We are still looking for someone to take the last one.
We are calling the custodians of the cabinets 'Aylesbury Foodbank Street Champions'. All they have to do is house the cabinet prominently at the front of their address. When full they can either bring the donations into the foodbank themselves, or arrange collection via a dedicated email address."
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