Roses are red, violets are blue, can't find the stilton, the cheddar will do

5 GoodGymers made their way to help the FareShare North East in Newcastle.

: Friday, 14th of February 2020
: Led by Maddy Winnard

This Valentine's Day, Charlotte, Liz, Rob, Will and I went along to the FareShare warehouse in Westerhope to lend a hand with sorting surplus food for redistribution across Tyne and Wear and County Durham. This was Rob and Will's first ever community mission!

Firstly, we got a tour of the warehouse, including the huge walk-in fridge and freezer, by the FareShare area manager. We discovered that FareShare's neighbours in the warehouse are GoodGym Newcastle's other pals - Changing Lives! We got suited and booted into high-vis jackets and steel toe-cap boots before setting off to work.

We set about locating items on the lists and sorting them into crates and loading these onto trolleys to be sent out to the local charities, with each of them having a mix of fresh food and cupboard items. We took turns of having the esteemed role of holding the clipboard and barking orders at the rest ("that'll be one case of melons, one case of Bertolli and two lots of Krave please Rob!"). The lovely FareShare team of staff and volunteers was on hand to help us locate things.

Charlotte will now be thinking about savoury bites in her sleep after her numerous trips to fetch them, Rob and Will took unusual amounts of pleasure in tessellating Pot Noodles into the crates (whatever floats your boat boys), and we all discovered a range of food we never knew existed (haggis pizza, anyone?) Although for a short period I somehow managed to mislay a seven crate-high trolley that was taller than me, Charlotte came to my rescue and we completed trolleys for about five or six different local charities in our 2 hours there!

After this cereal-sly good task, Liz went off to visit her GoodGym Coach after dropping Charlotte and I off in Gosforth (we were too chilled from our lengthy searches for stilton wedges in the fridge to walk!), and Will and Rob put us to shame by setting off on-foot on their pilgrimage back to Newcastle city centre.

FareShare, you got a (haggis) pizza our hearts!

Report written by Maddy Winnard