This is our first blog post, but today our current Project Manager had an impromptu visitor from one of the people who set up the Norwich foodbank – so this is a great start to our blog site, taking you back to when it all began.
In 2010, a group of people came together to discuss the need of a foodbank in our ‘fine city’ of Norwich, plus the practicalities of what this might look like, who would / could do the work, where to start etc. 3 key people met for a coffee to discuss all these things and Norwich foodbank was started shortly after, with the garage of one of these individual’s, purchased shelving and a pallet of soup.
Donations started to come in and a permanent collection point was set up in a supermarket that stills hosts us to this day (9 years later) and when the garage was outgrown, we moved to our current site at the Henderson Business Centre, unit 14. To begin with the warehouse housed stock and the office team and the space was shared with other charities, but again we kept growing thanks to generous donors and the need for support growing also, so the office team moved into their own space on the same site and the rest of the unit was taken over by foodstuffs and toiletries.
At this point in time – 2019 – we have one full time and one part time member of staff, close to 180 volunteers, 10 distribution centres where people in crisis can access our support, over 127 tonnes was donated and 9,322 food parcels were given out.
And let’s just say, while we are EXTREMELY grateful to our volunteers, donors and venues, we are very sad that we have grown to this size and know that this is definitely not the end.
Norwich foodbank blog 