The Great North (London) Run to help Chalk Farm Foodbank

Report by Andy

Photos by Andy and Patrick

Sorting, weighing and labelling food for the Trussell Trust foodbank was our Camden mission this beautiful Saturday. GoodGym runners arrived from all corners of London for this one – I think between us we had most GoodGym boroughs covered. And a good thing too, since this task was no stroll in the park – there were two months-worth of food donations to get through.

We congregated at Chalk Farm Baptist Church where the foodbank is based. Adrienne (our task master for the afternoon) gave a mini intro and a bit of a safety briefing, since we’d be lugging heavy boxes of food up and down stairs. Not many of us GoodGymmers had met before, and I think most of us were first-timers to missions. But in true GoodGym style we broke the ice with a human chain to shift all the food down the stairs in double quick time!

Next came the complicated logistical task of sorting into loosely defined categories. Does coconut milk go with milk? It’s not really milk though, is it? Highlights included the enormous quantity of cake decorating stuff, and the dozen or so jars of peanut-free peanut butter. I had no idea such a thing existed, but the Chalk Farm foodbank has got it. We weighed the lot, then checked every sell-by date to ensure as little food as possible would be wasted. Anything that was soon to go off was sorted by John; Anything that had already gone off was eaten by John! (Just kidding! ;))

We got the food boxed up and put away back upstairs, while Matt diligently hoovered any spilled crumbs. Adrienne kindly told us a little more about the foodbank and the important work they’re doing. Then we posed for the obligatory photo ops, gave a round of applause for a job well done, and enjoyed the rest of our weekends! Lovely to meet you all, let’s do this again!