Travel Chapter’s National Food Bank Drive

At Travel Chapter, one of our core goals is to ‘do the right thing’ and one of the ways we do this is by making positive contributions through charitable donations and raising awareness of the charities that have a real impact in our local communities.

Following on from our fundraising for Cancer Research UK in 2024, we embarked on a new endeavour we named our ‘National Food Bank Drive’. This initiative consisted of two charitable elements: fundraising for our Charity of the Year, Trussell (formerly known as The Trussell Trust) on a national level, and providing support to local food banks near our offices through volunteering and food donations.

Money raised

For the last 12 months, Travel Chapter has been working hard and we're pleased to announce that we've raised an incredible £7,283.81 with Gift Aid and made a huge difference to many of our local food banks, shares and pantries. Many staff donated money, took part in a fundraising event (or organised their own), and volunteered/donated to local food banks.

Here's a round up of how we raised over £7,000:

Supporting our local food banks

We chose to run a National Food Bank Drive because emergency food provision has risen sharply over the last five years, and is two and a half times the level seen a decade ago. In the last 12 months, food banks in the Trussell community distributed 2.9 million emergency food parcels – equivalent to one parcel every 11 seconds. Over 1 million of these parcels were provided for children. Independent food banks that we support have also seen an increase in demand.

"We are really grateful to Travel Chapter for supporting Trussell and our community of food banks. Food bank teams are working tirelessly to help people unable to afford the essentials and thanks to the generosity of partners and supporters like Travel Chapter, they can continue to provide vital emergency support in their communities, while we work together to end the need for food banks in the UK. Thank you" – Sophie Carre, Director of Income & Engagement at Trussell

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Local helping local

Here are some highlights from the food bank collections at our offices.

• Coquet Cottages swapped their annual Secret Santa for local food bank donations. Wansbeck Valley Food Bank asked for 'Advent' donations, adding an item a day throughout November to deliver in early December.
• The Keswick team, supporting their local food bank Keswick Area Food Share, did a collection of different items a month to take down to the food share, with items such as toilet rolls, tins, Christmas treats and toiletries.
• The Saundersfoot team collected donations for Pembrokeshire Foodbank, and earlier this year donated an incredible 31.75kg of items.
• Some of our colleagues at HQ decided that, instead of giving up something for lent, they'd donate items to East The Water Community Food Pantry.

Who is Trussell?

Trussell is an anti-poverty charity that supports a nationwide network of food banks. They provide emergency food and support to people who are trapped in poverty and advocate for change to eliminate the need for food banks in the UK.

More than 14 million people in the UK live below the poverty line, and one in seven people in the UK are facing hunger. But it takes more than food to end hunger, so they are on a mission to challenge the structural issues that lock people in poverty, and campaign for change.

The money we raised will be going towards funding these campaigns and important research to help Trussell reach their goal of ending the need for food banks.

Looking ahead ...

As a company, we want to continue to make positive contributions through charitable giving and raise awareness of charities that mean a lot to us as a business. We can't wait to bring you along on the journey as we support more impactful causes in the future.

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