Crucial Help at Christmas

Christmas is still some time away, but we have to get ready early here at Caring For Life. Over 100 Christmas food hampers have to be prepared, ready for distribution by members of our Being There housing support team.

This task alone requires a great deal of preparation, and we are so thankful to all those who gave donations of harvest food, which has enabled this wonderful end result of a Christmas hamper! A huge amount of sorting has already taken place, in preparation for this final task.

On hamper-packing day, tins have to be packed into the Christmas hamper bags, then the hampers taken to a different store on the Farm so that dried foods can be added, along with Christmas treats. 

We are extremely grateful to Allianz UK who sent 13 staff to help us this week. They worked really  hard to get the hampers completed in good time and formed a “dream team”, having fun on the day.

Caring For Life seeks to ensure that no one we support is forgotten at Christmas, but it is a big task and the help of corporate volunteer teams is absolutely crucial! 

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#CragHouseFarm #CaringForLife #CFL #Harvest #PackingHampers #Allianz #Volunteers #ChristmasHampers

Playing A Crucial Part

Corporate volunteers from HSBC came along to Caring For Life this week to play a crucial part in the preparations for Christmas. Sorting countless tins of food might not sound or look very Christmassy, but this is one step in the process of giving over 100 people an incredibly special Christmas.

Kind churches, schools, individuals, Scout groups, children’s nurseries and other organisations which donate food at harvest time, make all this possible. Staff and volunteers undertake the initial, mammoth task of sorting food.

Our kind HSBC volunteers sorted tins this week, ready for Christmas hamper packing. Soon, other corporate volunteers will be making up the actual Christmas food hampers. Then our Being There housing support team swing into action and deliver hampers and gifts. 

Only those who deliver the hampers see the reaction on people’s faces as they receive this lovely gift, but many people have played an absolutely crucial part in enabling this to happen.

To everyone, we say a very big, special thank you!!

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#CragHouseFarm #CaringForLife #CFL #Harvest #TinSorting #HSBC #Volunteers #Donations

Donating a Day

This week, a team from Lloyds Bank downed tools and donated a day to Caring For Life! We are immensely grateful to all our volunteers, including groups of corporate volunteers, who take time away from their usual duties to help us out.

The Lloyds volunteers knew what they were in for, some having volunteered in the past, so they knew they would be faced with a mountain of tinned food to sort!

A wonderful and very welcome flood of harvest gifts arrives at Caring For Life at this time of the year, donated by churches and groups up and down the country. But it all has to be sorted. The Lloyds team worked throughout the day, sorting tins into not only food types, but also date categories, so that they can be used effectively for food parcels.

Their help was crucial and made all the difference in enabling us to store the food which has been donated. Every food parcel that will be given out in the year ahead, every Christmas hamper, and every free meal served, depends on careful sorting of food at this stage.

We are truly grateful that the Lloyds volunteers donated a day, and their time was certainly well used. 

People who donate food and volunteers who help to sort it are all a part of a wonderful ministry of providing very practically and compassionately for people who are finding life itself a  real  struggle. Much of our work at Caring For Life involves giving people time; time to listen and really hear what a person is trying to say, time to sit with someone who simply needs company, or time to advocate for them when the world of housing applications, benefits or bills is just overwhelming. 

We in turn do thank all our volunteers who give Caring For Life the valuable donation of time.

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#CragHouseFarm #CaringForLife #CFL #TFJs #CorporateVolunteers #Volunteers #LloydsBank #Harvest