Recent weeks have seen us focus on distributing the large amount of new clothing that has come our way. We’re moving on approximately one pallet a month to our local community groups and homeless centres across east London and Essex.
Last month, our four pallets of clothes, drink, and toiletries were collected for transport to Rainham for container loading and onward shipment to Jamaica. We’re told that the Jamaican Government send their thanks and acknowledgement, but it’s no great effort for us to support them, just a bit of logistics, and we’re pleased to get the opportunity to help. We’ve been offered another four pallets of new clothes, some £50k-worth, and are presently investigating storage options.
Supporting Local Toy Appeals and Community Hubs
At this time of the year, there is plenty of demand for support for our local communities. In particular our fellow Club charity partner Ambition Aspire Achieve in Canning Town hold their Kevin Jenkins Christmas Toy Appeal and we’ll be making our usual donation there.
We also work closely with Bonny Downs Community Association in East Ham and will be delivering a quantity of Christmas clothing for their toy appeal sacks.
Honouring Our Emergency Service Heroes
We’re conscious of the strain on our emergency services professionals during the festive season and will again be making a delivery of Heroes chocolates to the staff at London Ambulance Service’s Dockside call centre, where they handle all London calls north of the river, some 8,000 a day at this time of year.
After six years of activity, we now know that we can do, and what we can’t take on. We previously distributed chocolate selection boxes at this time, but have sadly decided that it’s too much to take on. The supermarkets weren’t offering us any favours last year, and whilst we get the best deals for our ambient foods from our supplier HISChurch it wasn’t cost effective to repeat the exercise this year.
A Compliment from the PGMOL and Award Shortlists
We focus on what we are good at, and it was a pleasure to be contacted by the Football Supporters Association a few days ago. We’ve been recommended to the Referees Association, PGMOL, who wish to organise a foodbank initiative and collect at their training camps, and plan to visit our matchday collection point by the Aquatics Centre with a donation before the game with Aston Villa on Sunday 14th December. We’ll take that as a compliment.
On another note, we’ve been shortlisted for the Charity of the Year Award at the Newham Chamber of Commerce.
The Final Push Before Christmas
At the time of writing there are just two home games left before Christmas. We hope that with the support of our fans and matchday visitors to the QE Park, we’ll be able to collect enough to provide a tonne of food to our communities.
Aside from match day, on-line donations are always welcome: justgiving.com/crowdfunding/IronsSupportingFoodbanks2025-26
Thanks as always to everyone for your ongoing support.
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