A short summary of your project
Now in its fourth year, the Stand Up for Social Work Society is launching our Christmas foodbank campaign in week 6 of this semester. Social work students at Ulster are committed to supporting community engagement projects and building positive, sustainable relationships with local communities and charities. We are working alongside the Churches Trust supporting their ‘Pantry Project’ to tackle food poverty in the North West.
Every year the success of the campaign centres on the generosity of all staff and students on the Magee campus with the SUFSWS students as the driving force. The Pantry Project feeds over 2400 people a year with the ethos of community giving to community. Last year we had a phenomenal response from staff and students, and we are ready to do it again this year with your help.
Our aim is to put together as many food hampers as possible to donate to families in local areas to make their Christmas that little bit easier. We are trying to raise between £500- £1000 to enable us to gather resources and food to create as many hampers as we can.
Who are you?
We are the 'Stand Up for Social Work' Society. We are a group of Social Work students from Ulster University, Magee campus and we are passionate about supporting projects that make a real difference to local communities. We are a mixture of ages, gender, background, cultures and personalities all with one aim!
Your story
There are hundreds of local families living in poverty and worrying on a daily basis about not being able to feed their family. This should not be happening in 2019. Austerity and welfare reforms are having a massive impact on people's health and wellbeing and we want to raise awareness by taking direct action. As social work students we have gained an understanding and knowledge of the challenges and increasing needs families face in today's society. This is happening in our local communities with families living just down the street or around the corner. That is why we think it so important to get this message out there and help raise awareness of the increasing needs and the issue of food poverty.
For many of us Christmas is a time of celebration with family, food and gifts. Isn't it?......
Imagine your Christmas being a time of pressure, stress and worry of how you are going to feed your family from one day to the next. We understand that this is not only a worry for families at Christmas time and it can be a daily struggle, however we want to be able to embrace the gift of giving and help these families have one less worry this Christmas.
By contributing to this appeal you will be helping those most in need directly. You will be helping to provide breakfast for many children on Christmas morning, you will be giving families the opportunity to enjoy a Boxing Day meal together and you will be contributing to making Christmas a little less stressful for these families. This is important to us and we hope it is important to you too!
Where will the money go?
All funds raised will contribute directly to buying food to create as many hampers as possible to reach out to as many families as we can so we would love to reach our maximum target.
The dream would be to exceed this target as it really will only provide us with enough to make a small dent in the amount of families facing food poverty. Last year we managed to create 130+ hampers....these were allocated to local families within hours, it didn't even scratch the surface of the demand. This year we would love to go bigger and better and with your help we can do this.
Be reassured every penny raised will go directly to the families, we have no running or event costs to cover, purely food to feed the families.
We will provide regular updates on the progress of the campaign and the outcomes and inform you how your money has helped. There will be a special event on 5th December 2019 in the Great Hall at the Ulster University Magee campus where we will hand over the hampers to be distributed to the identified families, alongside festive carol singing, tea and buns and Christmas cheer! It would be great to see you there. Everyone is welcome!
Find us here
Follow us to find out how we're doing!
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/199815823772607/
Twitter: @standupforsw
Help us succeed!
Help us succeed!
You don't need to give money to help us succeed! Please share this project with anyone you think would support us on Twitter, Facebook and in a chat over the fence or on your blog.
In fact, share it with everyone you know as we think it's a great idea, and the more people who know about it, the more likely we are to make this work!
Also we will have donation points throughout the Ulster University Magee campus where you can drop in food items that will be put into the hampers. We know we said you don't need to give money to help us, but we'd love it if you did! Please sponsor us and help make this happen.
