In a month where Arnold Foodbank – sadly – announced that it had fed 43,000 local people in the last 10 years Gedling Eye caught up with the Redhill Road Runners (RRR), one of the many groups that support the Foodbank.
Kirsty Hills-Dixon, Comms Secretary for the running club told us about the club’s most recent event – a ‘Food Bank Run’, based upon an idea by Sarah Don – the driving force behind the national campaign.
Sarah Don founded the ‘Food Bank Run‘ idea off the back of a run started several years ago by a Hampshire based running club, the Fareham Running Club. The organisation encourages every running club, group and food bank to link up and create their own ‘Food Bank Run’.
The Redhill runners grasped this idea and joined the several hundred running clubs across the UK that have organised similar ‘Food Bank Run’ collections.
Kirsty said “We just did a collection at our club meeting point, picking a date and communicating that out to members. I’ve collected the items up and with the help of my husband (also a RRR member) dropped them off at Arnold Foodbank.
“The group did an initial collection in December as Christmas is of course a difficult time of year for so many people, but also in February as part of Sarah’s Food Bank Run drive as that is typically when donations fall. So this initiative was to try and give a boost to donations during that time. We’re not stopping there and the club has decided that we’ll do a quarterly collection and we hope that every little helps.”
An Arnold foodbank spokesperson told Gedling Eye that “We’re so grateful to the Redhill Runners for focussing their fundraising on Arnold Foodbank. We rely on the kindness of individuals and community groups, who make up over a third of all the donations we receive. And right now, as demand is greater than ever before, we’ve never needed support like this more. On behalf of our service users, thank you to the Redhill Runners for their continued kindness.”
Redhill Road Runners was founded in 1985 and have about 150 members today. They do regular club runs on Monday and Wednesday evenings, leaving from the Redhill Leisure Centre, for all abilities from Couch to 5k, through to Marathon and Ultra distance runners. They take part in a lot of other events as a club, such as Summer League, Cross Country and Fell Running events.
The running club’s proactivity doesn’t stop there – they are also the organisers of the annual Newstead Abbey Dash, a very popular 5k that runners across Nottinghamshire take part in each July. Around 350 runners usually attend this popular event which is a nice evening race through the beautiful grounds of Newstead Abbey and usually glorious sunshine.
Further information on the Redhill Road Runners including how to join and contact details can be found on https://www.redhillroadrunners.com/ or via their facebook page HERE
For those wishing to get in contact with Arnold Foodbank their details are:
Daybrook Baptist Church,
Mansfield Road,
Nottingham
NG5 6AA
Opening times – for referrals and donations
Monday, Wednesday and Friday 1.30pm – 3.00pm
Donations can be dropped off between 12pm and 3pm
Contact details –
Arnold peopel. Good. What you would expect standing by each other like Londoners. We are our capital and our peopel and standing together as arnolders well done