Ferrovial S.A. / Amey plc

AMEY plc.  began supporting Glasgow NW Foodbank in November 2017 with our Tesco collection, it was such a success that they supported us again in 2018, they recommended that their staff save up their charity hours until November to help us, there was more support for the food bank than the hours that we had to offer at the Tesco collections, so it was agreed that they would send staff to help in our food bank centre throughout December and they done the same in 2019.  Each year has seen a greater level participation from staff and it has been a great help to us to keep our food bank supplied in November and to help sort donations in November / December, we would like to thank David Fawcett and Lesley McCormack at AMEY for coordinating this help.

 

 

 

During the Covid-19 crisis, we received a call from our main contact at AMEY to advise us that their parent company Ferovial S. A. would like grant us €22,000, and that we were one of several food banks that would be given this grant.  When the money reached our account it came to a staggering £19,251.76 which is our largest single donation in the time our food bank has been open.

During the conversations relating to this grant, our Project Manager was talking to David Fawcett  who started our partnership, David asked if the money was okay, but okay was not in the spectrum of words for how to describe the money, as we were thinking £5k would have been fantastic.  When asked how we would likely use the money we advised that the our Project Manager’s post was previously funded from another source, but our last funder stopped funding us in November 2019, which has brought with it a lot of uncertainty for the future of the food bank. The needs of the food bank are so large that it requires paid management as well as support from our team of volunteers.  Whether the post is 2 part time managers, or 1 full time manager, doing what needs done in the food bank involves everyone playing their part, whether it is cleaning, sorting the food, making up food parcels, collecting the food and taking it to where it needs to be, coordinating the volunteers, liaising with the referral agencies and maintaining our bond with the Trussell Trust, our donors and supermarkets, or the ongoing administration,  the Project Manager’s post is the glue that keeps the food bank running; without it the food bank would not be able to function.

We are glad to say that this grant from Ferrovial S.A. will be used to support the administration which includes the salary of the Project Manager of our food bank for the next 2 years.  Our food bank was an essential service before Covid-19, it is an essential service now, and looking ahead, it will undoubtedly be essential over the next two years and beyond.

 

We have received so much support in the first two months of the pandemic coming to the UK, and it has brought with it a lot of challenges including our ability to purchase food, donors being able to purchase food, keeping our premises open, keeping our administration up to date, social distancing and people in financial poverty having to isolate.

On behalf of those that we help, we thank Ferrovial S.A, and in particular the staff at AMEY for their support which is enabling us to keep up this work.

 

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