Foodbank charity benefits from Spencer Group generosity

SUPPORT: Matt Mallory, Marketing Manager at Spencer Group, and Ellen White, Marketing Apprentice at Spencer Group, delivering food and essential items to Clive Da Silva at Hull Foodbank

By Rick Lyon

Staff at engineering company Spencer Group have raised more than £3,300 and donated thousands of items to a foodbank charity.

Staff chose The Trussell Trust as the company’s Charity of the Year for 2023 and have organised various fundraising activities since January, including bake sales, fitness challenges and table tennis tournaments.

They have also taken part in events such as Race Against Hunger, a 5k run, walk or cycle and Total Warrior in Leeds, while staff are also due to take part in an inflatable 5k event in Lincoln and the Yorkshire 10-mile race in York as part of the wider Yorkshire Marathon event in October.

The money raised will be donated to The Trussell Trust, which supports a nationwide network of more than 1,300 foodbanks and provides emergency food and support to people locked in poverty, as well as campaigning for change to end the need for foodbanks in the UK.

Items donated at Spencer Group’s head office in Hull are delivered to Hull Foodbank in Paragon Street, Hull city centre, every fortnight and are distributed to four other Trussell Trust foodbanks across the city, where support is needed most. Donation points are also located at every Spencer construction site across the country, with each site donating to local foodbanks in the region.

Matt Mallory, Marketing Manager at Spencer Group, said: “A lot of our charitable work in the past has involved purely raising money and it’s brilliant to be able to give back to the local community by donating food and other essential items to the foodbank.

“Staff have brought thousands of items into our head office in Hull, as well as our sites across the UK, and we’re delighted so many people have got on board with fundraising, events and donations to help the local community.

“Our colleagues are helping to make a big difference and we’re really proud to support the charity.

“The events we’ve organised and taken part in have been great for team spirit and it’s a been a huge team effort. We’re looking forward to raising and donating even more before the end of 2023.”

Last year, Spencer Group staff raised £7,008.91 for Andy’s Man Club, a men’s suicide prevention charity which offers free peer-to-peer support groups across the UK and online.

ESSENTIAL: Spencer Group’s Barry Foster dropping off items to Linda, a volunteer at Hull Foodbank

Spencer Group’s original fundraising target for The Trussell Trust was £5,000, in addition to donated food and essential items for Hull Foodbank.

However, the company is on course to exceed that amount and is aiming to raise a similar total to last year.

Spencer Group specialises in the design and build of complex multi-disciplinary engineering projects, working across the UK’s rail network, maintaining suspension and multi-span bridges, providing materials handling and bulk storage solutions, and working on power generation facilities.

The Trussell Trust provides a minimum of three days’ nutritionally balanced emergency food to people who have been referred, alongside support and advice to help them maximise their incomes and lift themselves out of poverty.

The charity said its network of foodbanks provided almost three million food supplies to people in crisis between April 2022 and March 2023, a 37 per cent increase on the previous year.

Clive Da Silva, Assistant Manager at Hull Foodbank, which is run by The Trussell Trust, said: “Although people give via supermarkets, corporate help is next to that in volume and it’s essential for us.

“We’re so grateful to Spencer Group because without support like this we’d be more than struggling and wouldn’t be able to cope with the demand.

“The cost of living is rising and we also have the challenges around fuel poverty. I see how hard our volunteers work and the hardship people are facing. Children are hungry and they’re looking at bare cupboards. This is happening.

“We’d like to say a genuinely heartfelt thank you to everyone at Spencer Group. They’re making such a difference.”

For more information about The Trussell Trust, visit www.trusselltrust.org