Shrove Tuesday? Suitcase Tuesday more like, for eight goodgymmers in Lambeth. Andrea from Get Rid of It and Donate (GROAD) organised us, to organise bags full of donations, into piles of trousers, jumpers, gloves, hats and blankets.

James had the official role of suitcase sanitiser and presented a one person conveyor belt of efficiency. Emma first displayed skills at blanket rolling and was soon promoted to Head of the Womenswear department. Ian has helped GROAD a fair few times now, so knew the drill and bagged up an impressive number of rucksacks of warm outfits for our rough sleepers.

John certainly ran the furthest, visiting from Camden, to help weed out the donations that were frankly, a little more suitable for summer than a cold London winter. Stuart proudly hit the jackpot to find some NEW pairs of socks - the only kind that are suitable to add into the packs for people sleeping rough.

Tracey and Gillian got stuck in sorting tents, sleeping bags and found out lots of great info from Andrea about how the donations get to GROAD. Thank you local community drop offs! And see here for our mention in the GROAD website blog!! https://www.getridofit-donate.com/blog

We managed to fill 40 suitcases with essentials to hand out to rough sleepers. Here comes the roll call for volunteers to hand these out next week on the Strand - sign up if you’re keen!

Oh and Vix (myself) brought brownies. Cause they’re easier to individually wrap in a COVID friendly fashion, than pancakes are! A brownie-fied successful community mission all round. Thanks for having us Andrea!