There was a variety of egg-sploits for GoodGym Newcastle’s newest member Alex to egg-splore at the foodbank today. There were fewer volunteers than of late so Alex and I had to get straight into packing 50 bags of veg as the volunteer drivers were arriving thick and fast. Once the veg were sorted we arranged and stacked lots of chocolate eggs. It was lovely to see how many had been donated - around 250 children who are r-egg-ularly supported by the East End Women’s foodbank will hopefully have a smile on their faces in a couple of weeks time. Further egg-sertions were in store as Alex and I then set to work on the tinned food - unpacking newly delivered tins into the crates and lifting them onto the shelves in the store room then carrying the crates through to the packing room and re-stacking the shelves. Welcome to GoodGym Alex - you did an egg-cellent job. I hope the egg-sperience lived up to your egg-spectations!

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.

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?

*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?

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!)

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.