Nice Pudding Work

18 runners ran 7.5k, weighed and sorted 200 food items, carried and stacked around 50 crates of food

After weaving our way down Brixton High Street, 18 runners arrived at the Vauxhall food bank. We were met by a very grateful Faith who split us into the sorters and the lifters. The sorters weighed the foods and sorted into types and the lifters carried crates and stacked them. The main food stuffs were soup and yes, you guessed it - rice pudding! Foodbanks have reported a triple rise in numbers over the past 2 years and Vauxhall Foodbank is manned almost totally by volunteers. There was lots of heavy lifting, such as tins of food and an ideal job for us Goodgym folk. Many runners commented on the satisfaction deemed from completing this task. Have a look at their website and see more of what they do: http://vauxhall.foodbank.org.uk/

We took the same route home and whilst most maintained a shifty pace, many were able to move up a gear, especially the group that got back to City Pantry first. Thanks to Tom for his leadership skills.

Benefit delay and benefit re-assessment cause people across the UK to go hungry. Almost 40% of foodbank clients last year experienced benefit delay.

Adventure playground The smaller group of ten or so runners set out for Kids Company who had recruited our help this week. They were located a gruelling five minutes from our starting point. We arrived and promptly headed back outside into the rather large garden, which boasted a fine array of swings and slides. Our task this week was to dig a boarder, to get the ground ready for planting trees.

Fresh faced and ready to go, we donned gloves, picked up the spades and began our task. Assisted by two trusty wheelbarrows, we got stuck in – and started to dig and sift mud like never before. Every spade full of mud brought on more sweat and each wheelbarrow seemed heavier than the last. Amongst the mud, we uncovered an interesting wire structure and rather a lot of worms. As the clock ticked, however, we kept up the pace until we had finished all of the digging.

Thanks to everyone’s efforts, the boarder looked perfect for the Kids Company to begin planting their trees. (Hooray!) A few of the bigger children from our group even managed to squeeze in some time to test out the impressive play area. We took to the streets, accompanied by Ivo on his bike, for the 4k run back to base in Brixton Village.

-Rebecca Nellis