The Hull Foodbank, part of The Trussell Trust, work to provide emergency food to support those in poverty. This year, the need for this support has been greater than ever. In October, the Trussell Trust released its first-ever emergency appeal for donations as the cost of living crisis has meant that food banks are under immense pressure in exceptionally difficult circumstances.

Since 2017, we have gathered an annual Christmas collection to donate to the Hull Foodbank. With the increased demand this year, we wanted to help more than ever.

Our annual Christmas collection began as a “Reverse Advent Calendar”, in which staff members would give one item of food to the collection every day in the run-up to Christmas. Over the years, this has grown exponentially thanks to the hard work of our organisers Colin Wooldridge and Ryan Anderson, as well as those across the group who have donated.

This year, we started our collection in July with a company fishing trip, with all the proceeds going towards our donation. Then, in October, we ramped up our effort to gather donations from across the J.R. Rix & Sons group. We were blown away this year by the generosity shown.

We are also thankful to those who aided us in our efforts to raise awareness of the Trussell Trust’s call for action, including BBC Radio Humberside, who invited Colin on air with Kofi Smiles to discuss what businesses in the local area can do to help as part of their Make a Difference campaign.

Our collection was completed and collected by Hull Foodbank just before Christmas. We are astounded and delighted to announce that the final weight for our 2022 Christmas donation was a whopping 1.91 Tonnes!

We wanted to take this opportunity to thank all those who have given to food banks this year, both within Fuelmate and in the wider area. We hope everyone had a lovely festive period and a Happy New Year.

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