It was a beautiful day for our weekly visit to the East End Women's food bank at Building Futures East. Having helped out here quite a few times now, Richard, Michael and I thought we knew everything there was to know about the task, but we did encounter a few new concepts, such as a client with a peanut allergy, a client without an oven, an expected fridge delivery in the middle of the task in the middle of the packing area and a cracked pot noodle pot and split carton in one bag! But as they say, there's no point crying over spilt milk so we carried on regardless. Another new concept was Richard's plan to speed things up by packing two bags at once! So we packed 45 bags of cupboard food and moved over 100 bags of cupboard food, more than 100 bags of fresh food and dozens of bags of toiletries from the packing crates into the amazing delivery drivers' cars, ready to make their way to the people of Walker. As it happened, the fridge didn't arrive, which just goes to show, you can't bank on a fridge delivery but you can bank on GoodGym to cr-ate the food bags!

It was another super speedy mission at East End Women food bank today where Michael FINALLY got to wear the cape of good deeds in celebration of his 50th good deed a few months ago!

We love getting stuck into this weekly task which involves packing food parcels, counting and stacking bags and helping the volunteer drivers to pack their cars full of food and essentials for families.

We realised today how much easier it was to pack the parcels up without the cereal boxes being bagged up- so simple but so effective, after all this time it was a revelation!

Another good week at Building Futures East where we are definitely part of the furniture now.

I want every one of you to go ahead now and give Michael a huge cheer for completing the East End Foodbank community mission SOLO today, in the same 24hr timeframe as he did a super painting job at Recyke Y Bike!

This is a vital task in which food parcel bags are packed and loaded into many vans for delivery in the East End of Newcastle for hundreds of vulnerable people. We will be continuing these missions throughout lockdown so get involved if you can.

Well done Michael, we think you are a superstar. (old photos for illustrative purposes!)

*Actually they were limes! With East End Women’s super woman Nancy, first timer at the food bank Charlotte, returning for a second time Florence, and I all sharing out the jobs today, the task today was easy peas-y lemon squeezy! Charlotte and Florence stacked the fab new shelves, I packed some more bags ready for delivery and we all helped load the bags into the volunteer delivery drivers’ cars. We built a huge Fruit Shoot mountain and a fluorescent pink Lucozade display! We were short of fresh veg this week but someone had kindly cooked curry and rice for the food bank’s freezer so hopefully, together with a naan bread this was a good substitute. Same time next week?

We were happily drowning in advent calendars on our Wednesday afternoon mission to help at East End Women foodbank.

Thanks to so many generous donations, including from GoodGym Newcastle runners, EVERY CHILD in the service will receive an advent calendar in their foodbank parcel this week- isnt that amazing? Thanks to my dubious counting someone did almost miss out, thankfully we made a list and checked it twice.

We packed four sets of deliveries this week and the time absolutely flew over. Such a satisfying midweek feeling and 50 happy families will be currently checking out a bag of goodies.

Same time next week?

Well done Liz and Michael on taking the last Tuesday for the team at East End Women foodbank!

The last Christmas hampers were prepped and packed with help from this delectable duo and many happy families received a bumper hamper.

Christmas cheer? Completed it mate.