All Blog Posts
12 Days of Cubemas #4: Volunteering with Bournemouth Food Bank
On the fourth day of CUBEMAS our team volunteered to help Bournemouth Food Bank distribute food around town to feed those in need. Who knew organising care-packages could be so complex... Read on to check out the incredible organisation that feed so many members of our community who can't always do so themselves. We're especially fans of the Reverse Advent Calendar...
3 min read
Culture
Not your traditional Christmas dinner:
On the fourth day of CUBEMAS we visited the Bournemouth FoodBank (BFB).
Helping provide much-needed support to vulnerable members of our community, who are all too often in crisis during the festive season.
All families, big and small:
An eager bunch of CUBES arrived without too much of an idea of what to expect.
The amount of food donated to the charity was really surprising; in fact, we found out that on occasion they even have a surplus of food which they send to other charities across Bournemouth.
Last year BHB handled 40 tonnes of various food items.
"When we were desperate, the foodbank was there for our family. It was our only lifeline."
We tasked ourselves with sorting through donated items; checking the use-by-date and organising them into various categories (pasta, tomatoes, sugar, fruit etc.) so that they were ready to be distributed to those in need.
How did we help?
Or more importantly, WHO did we help?
There are a number of ways people can get food vouchers to redeem with the charity, usually from local authorities such as doctors and social workers.
One thing we had to consider was putting together care packages for the homeless; ensuring that their items did not need cooking or utensils to open.
The reverse advent calendar:
A CUBE highlight from the day, the BHB run a campaign each year which involves donating an item for each day of December.
Hence ‘The Reverse Advent Calendar’ encouraging you to give instead of taking.
It was great to see so many volunteers helping out at such a busy time of the year! Definitely an inspiration for the upcoming days of CUBEMAS
Published on December 14, 2017, last updated on March 2, 2020
