Bridge Help’s Chesterfield Foodbank appeal raises £6,000

A six-week fundraising appeal, which has resulted in a whopping donation of £6,000 of food, toiletries and cash, will help hundreds of people in need across Chesterfield in 2023.

Launched in November 2022, Bridge Help’s annual Chesterfield Foodbank raised £3,000 thanks to donations from the firm’s brokers, suppliers, friends and family. The short-term commercial finance provider matched all donations, bringing the final total to £6,000.

A £4,400 haul of food and toiletries – which filled three vans – was delivered to the food bank just before Christmas. A £1,600 cash donation was also given to the charity to enable it to help people throughout the year when donations fall.

The food donated weighed in at more than 1.2 tonnes, enabling up to 1,300 meals to be made.

Roisin O’Gorman from Chesterfield Foodbank thanked Bridge Help for the donation, saying: “This donation will make such a positive difference at this incredibly difficult time. Demand for the Foodbank has increased by 35% since last year and 50% from the year before. The food donated will help keep us stocked up throughout the year when our donations start to dry up. You have really helped local people in crisis who are facing poverty!”

As well as a £500 donation of food to the collection, Stoneacre Motor Group and Maxus supplied two vans and members of their team to help Bridge Help and staff from Chesterfield Foodbank load and transport everything to the foodbank’s distribution centre on Carrwood Road in Sheepbridge.

As well as essentials – tins, pasta, long life fruit juice and milk, Bridge Help also donated toiletries, chocolate and biscuit treats for Christmas. Donations were collected and stored at the firm’s offices on Old Brick Works Lane.

Arranged by the firm’s Business Development Manager Phoebe Sellars, who is also a trustee of Chesterfield Citizens Advice, she said: “Each year the Bridge Help Foodbank appeal raises more than the last, which truly amazed me this year as everyone is feeling the effect with the cost-of-living crisis. Once again, people have been so generous and enabled us to give our biggest donation ever.

“Being a trustee of Chesterfield Citizens Advice I know how much this donation is needed this year. More and more people are having to make the impossible decision between choosing whether to eat or heat. I am pleased that we have been able to make a small difference locally.”

This was the third consecutive year Bridge Help has organised a collection and donation to Chesterfield Foodbank.

Since launching the Chesterfield Foodbank appeal in 2019, Bridge Help has donated more than £11,000 to the Sheepbridge-based foodbank warehouse, which is operated by The Trussell Trust.

The Chesterfield Foodbank distribution centre supplies six food banks – central Chesterfield, New Whittington, Loundsley Green, Brimington, Hope Valley and Hasland, which is the most recent foodbank. The Hasland foodbank was opened in April 2022 to cope with the increase in working people struggling to eat amid the cost-of-living hike.

Chesterfield Foodbank provides three days of nutritionally balanced emergency food and support to people who are referred to them and has been operating since 2013. The foodbank works through local agencies issuing vouchers to people in crisis who cannot afford to buy food.

Bridge Help supports the marketing and economic growth of the town through Chesterfield Champions, a network of over 200 organisations across Chesterfield and North Derbyshire.