A letter from the Wimbledon Foodbank
At home games in the run-up to Christmas, the AFC Wimbledon Foundation collected items from supporters to donate to the Wimbledon Foodbank.
Following generous donations from supporters, Tom Beere, Lyle Taylor, Dan Gallagher and Seth Owens joined Foundations staff to drop off the items to help those less fortunate at Christmas.
Below is the message sent from Corinne at Wimbledon Foodbank to the club:
Dear AFC Wimbledon,
We are writing to the players, staff and all the fans to thank-you for your continued support of Wimbledon Foodbank and generous donations. The donations have been weighted and it came to a staggering 500 kg. This amount of food will feed 71 individuals in crisis for three days.
This week we have helped over 150 Merton households in crisis. We have had many clients who are facing severe ill health with young children and have been very over whelmed by our ability to help them with food, toiletries and Christmas treats, but this is only made possible due to the generosity of the community.
The Foodbank will provide these families with three days of food and signpost them to the frontline professionals who can help solve the crisis. Wimbledon Foodbank works with families who are in crisis in the Merton area. For example, families who are coping with the day-to-day financial demands, until a crisis arises such as a broken boiler or a delay in benefits, could leave the family unable to feed themselves.
A total of 170 voucher holders have now signed up and to date over 100 tons of food have been donated. We have now fed 4,259 local people last year and over 7500 people in the last two years, many of which are children. These figures were beyond our expectations when opening on 31 October 2011.
Thank you so much for your contribution, it will make a huge difference to the families which we work with, and help us to continue supporting families in crisis.
Yours faithfully,
Corinne Marshall
Project Co-ordinator Wimbledon Foodbank