The Reverse Advent Calendar Food Bank Challenge

I have written about food banks before, and how it’s so important to try and support your local one if you can. At this time of year, especially for families, they begin to feel the pinch. The requests for presents. The latest gadgets and toys. And suddenly, there’s no money for everything. And no one should go hungry at this time of year, or ever.

 

I heard about the UK money bloggers reverse advent campaign when I attended the conference at the end of September. I thought it sounded great and can’t wait to get started! I’m hoping some of you will join in 🙂

 

The idea behind this is so straight forward. A normal advent calendar gives you something every morning. Normally chocolate, though there are so adult ones now containing fancy body stuff, or even gin! But, in a reverse advent calendar, each day you add a food item (or another useful item) to a box so by the end of it, you have 25 items that could be given as a little hamper to a food bank. It would be lovely to take your hamper to your local food bank.

 

Christmas is a stressful time for a lot of people. People who rely on different credits and free school meals suddenly have their children at home for two weeks and need to feed them each day. It really is as simple as that; the little change can tip over the edge and then there are families who are hungry for days on end. Whilst the majority of us are enjoying our Christmas dinner (and pud) there will be some who are eating tinned anything just to have something to eat that day.

 

The main food bank charity is the Trussell Trust, but have a search to see who your local food bank are. The one most local to us is run by the Church, so it does depend on where you live.

 

They have a post about what’s in a food parcel here, but local food banks often have things that they are in desperate need of and things they don’t need any more of at the current time. I suggest getting in touch if you can, though at this time of year I think they’ll need everything!

 

So that my reverse advent hamper can be used at Christmas, I’m going to do this throughout November, adding little extras each day. Even things like toiletries and sanitary products are very much needed as well. All of these things cost extra, and when you’re scraping pennies together, they go out the window very quickly.

 

I’m going to be keeping track of the items I put together, and sharing pictures on social media as I go along, using the hashtag #FoodbankAdvent 🙂

 

Why don’t you join me? I think we could all make a real difference! One box at a time 🙂