Armthorpe Food Support

18/12/2025

We are sorry to say that the Armthorpe Food Support Project is now closed and we are unable to accept applications for food parcels.
We would like to thank everyone for their kind support.
Please follow the link below for possible other sources of help.
Kindest regards, Armthorpe Food Support.

The links on this page can help you to find any cost of living advice you might need for you and your family.

18/12/2025

Well a day of mixed feelings. We are proud to complete our Christmas deliveries to 46 Armthorpe households who need help this Christmas. We delivered a bumper pack of food including everything needed for Christmas Day, personal and household hygiene products and treats and multiple quality gifts for children and adults. We also gave out lots of warm hoodies, fleece blankets, hot water bottles and electric blankets.
We also provided some cash toward gas and electricity.
Many smiles and some tears were shed amongst volunteers and recipients alike.
You may know that today was our last delivery, over the past six years we have delivered thousands of parcels to our neighbours in need, however, as hard as we have tried, our current model is not sustainable into the future. We have tried hard to communicate with recipients and to close down in an orderly manner.
We have given out information about other possible sources of help with today’s deliveries.
We would like to thank every single donor who has shown kindness and supported us. I would like to praise and thank our wonderful team of volunteers and everyone who has helped out over the years.

We are aware that the Parish Council is looking into gaining funding for a Community Development worker post, one of whose responsibilities will be to create work re Food Poverty. So watch that space.

One last huge and sincere thankyou to everyone who has helped us and by doing so has helped people who need our support.

Here are a few pics. Apologies we usually have more but we were a bit busy.
A merry Christmas and a Happy and healthy New year to everyone.
AFS.

17/12/2025

Huge day tomorrow. It’s time for our Christmas deliveries. It’s a lot of work. Many , many thanks to our lovely volunteers, who, thanks to our generous donors, were frightening the checkout lady at Asda with part of our Christmas shop early this morning.

16/12/2025

Armthorpe Food Support would like to express our gratitude for all the support in cash and donations that we have recieved towards our Christmas deliveries.
It is difficult to thank everyone personally , especially as many folk just drop by the community centre and leave things when we aren’t about.
So if you have dropped anything off for us please accept our deepest gratitude.
We would like to offer specific thanks to Our Lady of Sorrows school for their wonderful food donation, to the very kind resdients of Charles Court for their collection, and “Brian” for his amazing cash donation.
Thanks to these acts of kindness and the wonderful donation from Mr Bryn Close we will be ensuring that our Armthorpe Neighbours in need know that our Village cares for them this Christmas.
Thankyou everyone from the bottom of our hearts.

All at AFS

16/12/2025

Armthorpe Food Support.
Don’t forget, deadline noon Wednesday.
🙂🙂🙂

03/12/2025

It’s been a sad sort a day, much uplifted by visits from some lovely folk.
So we’d like to give our heartfelt thanks to a number of people who have contributed to our Christmas campaign.
Firstly the wonderful ladies from the Busy Bees group who brought a kind and generous Christmas donation, secondly a young lady called Maddy Orton who came along with her parents. Maddy loves animals and has raised £300 to buy treats and food for animals, some of which she donated to AFS today. Maddy wants to be a vet and I’m sure she will succeed.
Lastly we’d like to give a huge thankyou to a very kind man, Mr Bryn Close for his donation which will enable us to cover the costs of Christmas for all our families.
Thankyou to everyone.

03/12/2025

We have some difficult and sad news to share with you.

As you can imagine keeping the Project going and making sure it is effective requires quite a bit of ongoing and intensive work. AFS is, and always has been, completely volunteer led. We have been operating for almost six years, we have delivered thousands of food and hygiene product parcels and have never missed a delivery. We have also delivered “Christmas” to many families over the years, bringing a good Christmas to many families who otherwise would have had a very poor one or none at all.

For some time we have been searching for a model that could be sustainable in the longer term. unfortunately we have not been able to reach a solution enabling us to go forward on a completely volunteer led basis.

It is with heavy hearts that we must tell you that the Project will be closing down after our Christmas delivery on December 18th. This has been a very difficult decision to come to.

We are currently focusing on providing our usual service until then including the provision of our usual robust Christmas offer. We are able to do this due to the kind and wonderful donations in cash and in kind that our Armthorpe friends and organisations have given over the past week or so.

Working with community organisations we intend to leave some emergency measures behind us. In addition at the Parish Council meeting last night Councillors voted to prioritise the seeking of funding to employ a Community worker, part of whose role would be putting together a Village response to food poverty.

Over the years many individuals, schools, Churches, charities, organisations and businesses have donated to us, they have undertaken collections and fundraising activities. All this work and effort has always translated directly in providing for our neighbours in need.

We would like to thank everyone for their kindness and support, we are so grateful to everyone who has supported us, too many to name, however we would like to especially thank Armthorpe Parish Council for all their hard work and for providing the facilities we operate from.

Please be assured that the Christmas deliveries will happen and any donations made will be used before we close.

Kindest regards from all the Volunteers at Armthorpe Food Support.

10/11/2025

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1233349968829587&id=100064637861862

Applications for the Household Support Fund are still open!🏡

All households who receive Housing Benefit, Council Tax Reduction (means-tested), Universal Credit (Housing Element) and Free School Meals (means tested), are eligible for a payment of £100 towards energy bills. Households with children are also eligible for an additional payment towards food up to £300.

Almost 29,000 vulnerable households in Doncaster on the lowest incomes (including pensioners) have already been identified as eligible for this direct financial support from the fund.
There is no need to reapply if you have already been identified as eligible.

If you have not already applied, complete your application now, and you will receive a payment towards energy bills on 15 December 2025 to help you over the winter months ❄️

Apply now by getting in touch with the Benefits Team on 01302 735336 - or visit: https://www.doncaster.gov.uk/services/council-tax-benefits/household-support-fund

03/11/2025

Please read the whole post before applying.

ARMTHORPE FOOD SUPPORT.

Are you short of food? Struggling to manage to feed your family?
We may be able to help.

Here’s some information about what AFS does and how to apply.

It’s important to remember that you have to be an Armthorpe resident to receive support and, very importantly, you have to be without enough food.

We’re a group of local volunteers trying to help out neighbours, you will be treated with kindness, respect and confidentiality.

The cost of living crisis is biting hard for all of us, AFS focuses on our neighbours who are without food. We’re currently supporting around 30 households per week. These households consist of all types of families including children, older people and vulnerable adults, they include people who are working and people who are receiving benefits.

A gentle reminder that we aren’t here to top up the weekly budget a bit, we’re here to provide food, toiletries and household materials to members of our community who are currently without the means to feed themselves properly.

We provide a decent sized parcel of ambient and canned food including fruit and vegetables, we also provide other goods including nappies and pet food when we have them.

If you would like to apply it’s very straightforward. You can either ask an agency, like a school, to refer you or you can refer yourself. This is done by picking up a form from the box on the gates at the Community Centre on Church Street. You can fill it in and post it in the black Community Centre postbox on the same gate. Please make sure you fill it in fully. It’s fairly brief but we need all the information asked for. ITS ESPECIALLY IMPORTANT TO GIVE US A PHONE NUMBER.

We work by delivering packages first thing on Thursday mornings.The deadline for application is strictly 12 NOON ON WEDNESDAYS. There needs to be someone at home on the Thursday morning to receive the parcel.

We cannot guarantee that we will be able to help every applicant, however we will do our best to.

If you have any questions please get in touch by calling 01302 834069 or contacting us via the messenger button on the Armthorpe Food Support page. Please don’t submit forms via this route. They cannot be accepted.

If you wish to volunteer you can get in touch by the same route.

Donations can be dropped off at Armthorpe Community Centre on weekdays between 9.30 and 1.30. Also at Morrison and Specsavers.

Many thanks .
AFS.

30/10/2025

A big thankyou to our lovely friends Carol Powney and Lynda Dickman for donating Halloween gifts this week. Lovely sweeties and Halloween Party tickets. They’ve gone out to our families today.
Thanks so much for your kindness.

29/10/2025

A big thank you to Sarah Kent for her lovely donation of pumpkins today. They will be going out with tomorrows deliveries 🙂