12/10/2026
In amongst all the lovely harvest donations we had other super exciting news last week. Assist Housing, who are based in Erdington, will be making a very generous monthly donation of £2000 to help pay for the running of our Erdington food bank.
This is the biggest weekly food bank we run on a Tuesday morning at Stockland Green Methodist Church. In just over an hour we have over 170 people coming through the doors to access the surplus vegetables, fruit and bread we have collected and to pick up one of our staple bags of long life food. Every other week we hand out fresh milk and half a dozen eggs, and once a month we now offer a block of butter and some cheese. Items that many of us take for granted but items that add a little bit more nutrition to the surplus and long life bag. And whilst harvest donations help a lot we do also need cash to pay for all of the above plus the over heads of running the charity.
And like a lot of people, charities and businesses we have felt the impact of price increases to food and petrol. To just keep the Erdington food bank going each year it costs over £50,000 and this doesn’t include overhead costs of running the van, paying insurance and rent for our base etc. It’s a lot and remember we have no staff we are all volunteers giving our time and much more freely. So every pound donated already goes directly to funding what we do.
So imagine our delight when in stepped Assist Housing.
Deb Middleton, Trustee and co ordinator of the charity said “The financial support of Assist Housing couldn’t have come at a more crucial time for us. We are blessed to have the long time support of Sutton Coldfield Charitable Trust to fund the 2 food banks we run in Falcon Lodge and Mere Green. But the costs of running the charity have been increasing for a while and in order to continue supporting the most vulnerable in North Birmingham we needed to raise more income”
“The monthly £2000 from Assist Housing will go towards the purchase of the butter, cheese, eggs, fresh milk and much more. We are truly delighted, amazed and very very grateful to Mohammad Sadakat & Kirsty who came along to base to present us with the first of the monthly donations”.
Mike Harrison, Hope Food trustee was on hand to accept the cheque.
