I had offered to help out with the food parcel packing for the Smile Brigade on Friday morning, and was delighted to turn up and be greeted by my fellow GoodGymmer Áine, who was also putting a shift in.

The Smile Brigade deliver food packages with groceries, basic essentials and hot meals to vulnerable residents up and down the Hammersmith & Fulham borough, and our first task of the day was to bag up the groceries for the deliveries that afternoon.

Along with a team of other lovely volunteers, we made up over a hundred blue bags of produce, filled with biscuits, milk, fresh bread and rolls, yoghurts, and interestingly enough, sauerkraut. There was a lot of sauerkraut! Then Áine and her fruit and veg team put together pears of potatoes, bananas, carrots, onions, apples... And some of the lucky bags even got the biggest bits of broccoli seen!

After making up all the bags, we helped unload a few more donations (more sauerkraut), emptied onions and tidied up the recycling, before the last challenge of filling up cups with porridge oats, and finding lids to fit!

Oat last, we finished, time flew by, and the morning shift was done, and the volunteers for the afternoon deliveries had arrived to take our bags away. Hopefully putting a smile on their faces.