GWP offer a package of help for Swindon Foodbank

GWP Group’s ongoing partnership has seen assistance provided to Swindon Foodbank in another way – this time providing additional storage and warehouse space for stocks of food in the run up to the busy harvest festival period.

The seasonal event, supported by the majority of local schools in Swindon, frequently generates more than seventeen tonnes of food.

To ease the pressure on the Foodbank’s warehouse space – that they already share with another charity – GWP Group are safely storing a large quantity of dried food in it’s Cricklade warehouse. This can then be returned to the Foodbank as and when required.

As well as aiding Swindon Foodbank with additional warehouse storage space during this busy period, there have been a wide number of other collaborations between the two organisations.

The partnership started in earnest when GWP Group tasked Swindon College students with a project to create a handling solution for use at the charity’s distribution centre.

With designs created from corrugated cardboard, groups of student competed to win a cash prize, work placement at GWP Group and to see their boxes manufactured.

On completion of the competition, GWP Group donated the boxes to the Foodbank.

Following the success of this, GWP Group officially adopted Foodbank as its registered charity in early 2014.

This initially led to GWP Group’s own Electricians, Barry Cuss and Chris Ricketts, spending six days at the Foodbank warehouse carrying out electrical improvements. Parts for the improvements were donated by R&H Electrical, Swindon.

Besides this, a recent project saw two hundred Correx® collection boxes manufactured, with the aim of providing both a POS collection point at locations around the town, as well as an efficient and easy to use handling solution.

Besides the help with packaging, logistics and storage, a team of nine GWP Group employees also raised nearly £3000 for the charity by completing the Three Peaks Challenge.

The team, led by maintenance manager Barry Cuss, climbed the three highest peaks in the UK in under twenty-four hours. Having logged the miles covered in training, the team have collectively scaled Everest more than twice, ensuring they were well prepared for the gruelling challenge.

In order to help mark ten years of the Swindon Foodbank the charity held an event called The Big Lunch.

The concept behind the event was that the catering students at Swindon College would make a tasty meal using the items that typically make up a Foodbank delivery.

This posed an interesting challenge to the students as Foodbank is unable to distribute fresh food and so the entire meal had to be made from tinned or packaged items.

The students more than rose to the challenge and created a very tasty and beautifully presented seven course taster menu to thirty or so representatives from businesses in Swindon who have supported the Foodbank (including GWP) over the last ten years.

The Swindon Charity ‘Swindon Foodbank’ was launched in 2005 to offer practical help to those facing sudden crisis.

Working together with the borough’s support agencies and local volunteers and supported by the generosity of local people, the charity makes a significant difference to the lives of thousands.

Swindon Foodbank is part of the larger Foodbank network, run by The Trussell Trust who are based in Salisbury. The Trussell Trust is a Christian charity specialising in the development of life-changing community projects.

The Foodbank network is continually growing, with almost four hundred Foodbanks now open throughout the UK.

For up to date information about other Foodbanks, or information about opening a Foodbank in your own area, please contact The Trussell Trust – visit www.trusselltrust.org.