Voluntary Service Club visit to Feeding Families

Following on from our Harvest Festival food bank collection, some of the boys from Voluntary Service Club had the opportunity on Wednesday afternoon of visiting the charity Feeding Families’ packing centre in Blaydon. Taking the very generous donations from the School’s community with them, the boys found out some fascinating facts about the packaging of food boxes, including that Feeding Families package and distribute over 2000 boxes of food a month – scarily, double the total that they produced a year ago. The charity spends £6000 a month on food, and relies solely on volunteers to come and pack their boxes each week.

Following an explanation of what goes into a box for each family, the boys got to work and loved the chance to fill boxes with all dried goods, from cereal and rice to beans and even biscuits. With over 20 items going into each box, the boys quickly got started and in the hour session filled over 65 boxes for the charity, which were closed and box-taped up before being ready to be shipped off in the morning to charities in need in North Shields – one of the many areas Feeding Families supports.

The boys had a really eye-opening and fantastic time supporting a great cause, and showed considerable empathy and sense of community in doing so. They are already lobbying the staff to go back and support the packaging process again, and the charity are always open to donations or voluntary support. VS club, and the School in general, are proud to support the work that Feeding Families do and we are looking forward to some further activities in the coming months that will support such a fantastic cause.