This week’s South Ealing Food Cupboard mission started off unusually calm. Stephane and Iram had plenty of time to enjoy the sunshine and chat while we waited over an hour for the delivery, delayed, but not forgotten!

When it finally arrived, the calm quickly turned into chaos. The delivery was significantly larger than usual, and with patrons already waiting beyond the normal start time, it became a fast-paced unpacking frenzy.

We unloaded a mountain of food: heaps of potatoes, bunches of bananas, stacks of instant noodles, and a fridge and a half full of sour cream sachets. Open HelloFresh boxes added to the mystery meal vibe, and someone even donated a bag of fresh tomatoes from their allotment - a lovely personal touch! Of course, all this abundance came with an avalanche of cardboard to recycle, which kept us busy right to the end.

From peaceful beginnings to a mad dash unpack, it was another rewarding (and slightly sweaty) session at the Food Cupboard.

Each Monday morning, GoodGym lends a hand to the South Ealing Food Cupboard, helping the wonderful volunteers get surplus food sorted and ready for the local community. This week, Diana and Iram were up to the task!

This week’s session felt more like preparing for a tropical brunch buffet than a typical food cupboard shift! There was a bounty of pineapples, coconuts, and enormous watermelons. There were so many huge melons, it required a team effort to move, chop and bag them! As if that wasn’t enough, boxes of croissants, stacks of tin foil, and an avalanche of chicken made their entrance - a good haul indeed.

It was another brilliant morning of teamwork, good vibes, and keeping good food out of the bin and into the hands of people who need it.

Each Monday morning, GoodGym helps the South Ealing Food Cupboard volunteers prepare to give away food to the community. Supermarkets and other organisations donate surplus items to prevent waste. A lot of heavy lifting and speedy organisation is needed to get a van-load of food ready to share!

This morning’s haul was a slightly odd selection: white chocolate Easter bunnies, jelly play kits, and a mountain of Cornish pasties. Rebecca and Iram channelled their inner Tetris masters to squeeze the pasties into every available fridge space. Honestly, there were probably more pasties in the room than in the whole of Cornwall! Meanwhile, Jamie did a fabulous job flattening the humongous pile of cardboard, and Martin took on the sun-soaked task of unloading crates from the van and hauling them over to the church.

It was Rebecca’s first GoodGym session and Jamie’s second — lovely to welcome them both! They took to it like ducks to water!

There were 3 reasons for celebration at South Ealing Food Cupboard this morning:

1. Josh came to his first GoodGym task. Welcome! 🥳👋
2. Martin achieved his 50th good deed, earning his black t-shirt
3. A Tesco driver brought an extra delivery to Food Cupboard

Wait... what?! In addition to the usual DHL food drop, the Tesco driver came to the church garden rather than Church Gardens, a nearby street. The volunteers started to unload birthday cake and fruit before realising that this was not the delivery they were expecting.

Thankfully, there was plenty of food in the actual Food Cupboard's deliveries too, which Martin, Josh and Sevan helped to move into the church. These included some fancy meats like steak, duck and venison as well as exotic mangoes and papayas. The usuals were there too, with plenty of ready meals stacked into the fridges by Josh and Sevan and the ever present banana crates, which were very green this week.

After a quick costume change into his GoodGym t-shirt, Martin was ready for his big moment and put on the shiny 50 good deeds sash to be the star of today's photos 🌟. Well done Martin! You've shown great dedication to South Ealing Food Cupboard, helping new GoodGymers to feel welcome at this task and be able to jump right in and have a big impact. 👏

Monday mornings in Ealing mean South Ealing Food Cupboard, where food that supermarkets have overstocked on is given away to the public, avoiding it being wasted. For some people, it's the most fun that they have with GoodGym, turning carrot chaos into tomato tranquility.

Today was no different, with crates full of oranges and tangerines, fresh turkey and the now common sight of Hello Fresh meal kits that'd been torn open, mixing all of the ingredients together randomly. Alan and Sevan helped some of the regulars haul the second delivery inside, where Iram and Martin were helping to unpack and organise everything in the 2 small rooms that are the Food Cupboard. Eventually everyone moved onto sorting donations and stacking shelves and fridges.

Bananas are ever present too and some of today's delivery had seen better days. Iram took on the task of sorting through the crates, finding the ones that were almost or already turned to mush and disposing of them. There were still a lot of bananas, so everyone grabbed a bunch to take home and there was a tempting stack of biscuit boxes near the door too 😋.

Sevan arrived at St Mary's Church and met the regular volunteers who were having a chat in the sun, waiting for the second delivery van to arrive.

"Looks like one of your lot is working in the garden. Red t-shirt with white writing on the front" - Graham

Sevan went to take a look at who the gardener was, which is a story for later...

Soon the familiar DHL van rolled up and everyone sprang into action, ferrying crates and boxes of food to the church building. There were a few cardboard casualties en-route, but all of the food made it to be sorted through and put on display. Sevan was joined by Iram at her first task, with them both helping the regulars in identifying and stacking salad leaves and herbs. Iram tried hard to make the biggest stable pile of cos lettuce packs and to separate flat leaf parsley from coriander. Well, new GoodGymers need to earn their stripes. Welcome Iram 🎉👏🥳! Great work and we look forward to seeing you at another task soon.

Today's delivery had few ready meals and was relatively meat free, with cocktail sausages and 2 giant pizzas being the main items for carnivores in the fridges. The pizzas were so big that they and their packaging ended up being cut into smaller pieces with a bread knife to be shared between the clients 🔪. Other than the pizza, the most unusual item today was a box of tiny, super concentrated limes that most of the volunteers had decided to test out in the line of duty to their clients 🤢.