As part of the Foundation Players’ Project, we received a visit from Lukasz Fabianski, Tomas Soucek and Leroy Laing, who helped to prepare winter coats and bags which were then delivered to Tunmarsh School in Beckton. Sky Sports News came along to record an interview.
West Ham’s first team, women’s team and youth team collected several £1,000’s worth of food for Newham Foodbank and we went along to Chadwell Heath and Rush Green to collect these.
With donations from fans, we were able to distribute several 1,000 chocolate treats to the Newham community, including Ambition Aspire Achieve in Canning Town. We also received a generous donation of chocolates from Sainsburys Stratford and their staff.
West Ham’s first team, women’s team and youth team collected several £1,000’s worth of food for Newham Foodbank and we went along to Chadwell Heath and Rush Green to collect these.
During the World Cup break we received a message of support from skipper Declan Rice.
Dagenham and Redbridge Council provided us with storage facilities at Chadwell Heath for our food and clothing deliveries. Just afterwards we received 9 pallet loads of new clothing for local distribution.
We were thrilled to win the Civic & Community Engagement Award at the Newham Business Awards 2022. Thank you to everyone for the support.
Our new winter beanies arrived from Apparel Studio, helping to raise more funds for our community.
We were thrilled to win the Civic & Community Engagement Award at the Newham Business Awards 2022. Thank you to everyone for the support.
Following the postponement of the home game vs Newcastle United the Club contacted us offering some of the fresh food being supplied to the corporate lounges by Delaware North.
We were able to facilitate delivery of several 100 sandwiches and wraps to Caritas Anchor House for their residents in Canning Town.
Umbro UK again donated a further £5,000-worth of sportswear including futsal trainers. Players and staff from Genesis futsal club will be collecting with us before a future home game.
Over the summer break we received video messages of support from Jarrod Bowen, Stacey Fisk and Paul Konchesky. Thanks guys!
West Ham friends provided us with this flag which is now on view at the London Stadium on matchdays.
Bakkavor Breads in Crewe began supplying us with surplus flatbreads and fresh foods for distribution in East London. These have so far been delivered to Newham Foodbank and foodbanks in Dagenham and to Barking Council.
Over 22,000 cans of lemonade were donated by the distributor to YNCA in Crewe. We were able to deliver over 2,000 of these around east London.
Our supporter Russ Budden hosted a further ISF fundraiser on his channel with legends David Cross and Frank McAvennie.
Our foodbank supplier HIS Church offered a seasonal pallet of chocolates worth £4,000. We were able to deliver 2 of these to foodbanks in Newham..
Our foodbank donations are now heading further east. This was our first delivery to KHCCC in Dagenham, made possible by donations from West Ham fans.
We were able to deliver a further 6 boxes of new Arriva fleeces to homeless groups at Anchor House and Bonny Downs. We collected a further 1,000+ fleeces from their Crewe depot for delivery to east London.
We were able to deliver a further 6 boxes of new Arriva fleeces to homeless groups at Anchor House and Bonny Downs. We collected a further 1,000+ fleeces from their Crewe depot for delivery to east London.
LS PA announcer and Club historian Martin Godleman will be signing copies of his 2 books covering events in our 2003-04 and 2011-12 seasons in the WHU Supporters Club when it’s open after home games. The books are being sold at half price with all proceeds going towards Irons Supporting Foodbanks.
We began delivering the first of 8,100 Easter chocolates to local foodbanks.
Mike Donovan from Apparel Studio in Stockport has supplied us with a quantity of tees, hoodies and beanies which we will make available for sale in the autumn.
You might see these QR stickers around Stratford and Hackney Wick. Please drop us a donation if you can, it all helps.
Jake Cox from West Ham Unofficial made a foodbank donation to Fans Supporting Foodbanks before our game at Anfield on our behalf.
During the month we were also able to obtain over 400 items of new clothes for adults, children and infants from our suppliers for #UkraineAppeal initiatives organised by Polski Merseyside and in Essex..
We began buying and distributing the first of 6,000 Easter chocolates for children whose families are dependent on using foodbanks.
With the support of donations from West Ham fans and friends we were able to deliver several food pallets to various foodbanks in Newham including Ambition Aspire Achieve, the Renewal Programme, Newham MSF and St Pauls Church Stratford.
We delivered approx. 1500 items of new tees and hoodies to a number of homeless centres and women’s refuges in Newham.
London Stadium PA announcer Martin Godleman supplied us with a number of his West Ham United history books for sale at half price in the Supporters Club, with all proceeds going to ISF.
We’ll be selling the signed books again after the Newcastle game on 19th February.
Before our game at Old Trafford we went across to meet our friends at the MUFC foodbank with our food donation.
Nicky and Andy from West Ham Fan TV came along before the game with Norwich and collected with us.
Apparel Studio in Stockport donated over £3,600-worth of new sportswear and beanie hats which have been delivered to Caritas Anchor House in Canning Town.
For our game at Burnley we took the opportunity of making a foodbank donation to our friends running the Burnley Clarets foodbank.
We were featured in a Newham Recorder article with our support for the Kevin Jenkins OBE Recorder Christmas Toy Appeal. This year we were able to donate £10,000-worth of sports equipment which we obtained from Umbro, and 300 chocolate selection packs for the children.
WHUST donated 50 scarves to us which we were able to the Anchor House homeless centre. We also received 600 scarves from West Ham United which were donated to Lola’s Homeless, Ambition Aspire Achieve and Newham Foodbank.
Riverside School Barking Sixth Formers had chosen us as their project to win a £1,000 donation from the national schools First Give competition. They came along as volunteers before the Liverpool game and helped to collect a staggering £760 in donations for the foodbank. We also received foodbank donations of 4 trays of food and cash from Fans Supporting Foodbanks, plus a £501 cheque from our friends from the LFC Red Indians supporters group.
We organised a van-load of £35,000-worth of sports clothes and new clothes and winter coats to various Newham groups including Ambition Aspire Achieve, the Magpie Project, Caritas Anchor House and Newham Foodbank.
Before our game at Manchester City we took along our donation to our friends at the MCFC Fans Foodbank.
The guys from West Ham Unofficial came along to interview us for their YouTube channel before the Genk Europa League game and brought along a donation to Newham Foodbank.
We were pleased to get the support of the Hammers Chat Moore’d boats and the Supporters’ Club on match days, who both now display Canning Town Len’s super shinys featuring our QR code for direct donations to our JustGiving page. The Club has provided us with button badges for donors to take away with our thanks.
Liam from Trans Pennine Irons had put us in touch with Umbro in Manchester, who had a quantity of surplus sample football boots and trainers. We were able to get these delivered, approx. £10,000-worth, in time as another donation for the Kevin Jenkins OBE Recorder Christmas Toy Appeal.
Before the game at Everton we took along our foodbank donation and arranged for Jake Cox from West Ham Unofficial to interview Fans Supporting Foodbanks co-founder Ian Byrne MP. Jake’s pictured with Ian’s dad, a volunteer.
We were pleased to get the support of this fan with us before the Man City game.
It was a pleasure to be invited to the Ambition Aspire Achieve Anniversary Celebration in Canning Town and took the opportunity to deliver the £5,000-worth of sports kit donated from UMBRO UK.
Nicky Hawkins from West Ham Fan TV came along to interview volunteer Megan before the Manchester United game. Thanks for your on-going support guys.
Before the Carabao Cup game against Manchester United we took along a foodbank donation to our friends at the MUST foodbank..
Jas from West Ham Irons Channel came along for a pre-match chat with our volunteers and left a generous donation for the foodbank.
We were pleased to be able to return to the London Stadium for the game vs Atalanta and re-start collections after an 18 month absence. Great to get the donations from Andy at the Met Police and to speak with Nicky at West Ham Fan TV.
We took a foodbank donation to NUFCFoodbank for our opening League game at Newcastle United. Good to chat with Bill Corcoran again who’s been very supportive with advice.
We were pleased to be welcomed as members of the FSA and look forward to supporting them going forward as members of the Fans Supporting Foodbanks National Network.
The club invited us for a pitch-side interview with BBC’s Ben Mundy before the Crystal Palace game to talk about our work with Newham Foodbank and the local community.
Canning Town Len has kindly provided 2 large mega shiny display panels featuring our QR code for direct donations to the JustGiving page. Illustrated here by our good friends Tone and Jim.
We were able to collect and distribute a further 17 bags of new clothing destined for homeless hostels and refuges in East London.
West Ham Fan TV’s Nicky Hawkins arranged for a donation of a pallet-load of his company’s MYDIS hand sanitisers to Newham Foodbank. Thanks Nicky!
We were able to supply a further car-load of new clothes to Newham Foodbank and to various Newham church homeless centres.
Our friends in Liverpool @SFoodbanks were able to donate further supplies of in-demand tinned fish to Newham Foodbank.
As the football season ended, Essex-based Italian clothing supplier Pellicano Menswear ran a further donation campaign in support of football fan foodbanks in Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle and ourselves. Thanks guys.
We have now partnered with The Magpie Project (@magpieprojectuk) and have supplied several 100’s of new hoodies and t-shirts for their residents at Forest Gate.
Our partners Spire London East Hospital supported our Easter Egg Appeal with a generous donation from staff. Thanks to everyone for your continued support.
We were invited to Chadwell Heath to receive a generous donation of 300 Easter eggs from West Ham United, plus further egg donations and food parcels from new Women’s team sponsor Rainer Hughes.
A further 1000 tins of tuna plus pasta donated by @SFoodbanks were delivered to Newham Foodbank.
We joined forces with the other football fan foodbank groups around the country to highlight the #RightToFood petition which needs 100,000 signatures to be considered for debate in Parliament.
Make access to food a legal right – no one in the UK should go hungry – Petitions (parliament.uk)
Anjli Raval from the FT published a hard-hitting report on the severe situation in Newham’s Covid Triangle. The article is free to read here:
https://www.ft.com/content/0e63541a-8b6d-4bec-8b59-b391bf44a492
As a member of the FSF National Network we were nominated for the #LockdownHeroes category in this year’s FSA Awards, which we were thrilled to win. Over £400,000 was raised on behalf of our foodbanks by the #CharityNotPPV campaign. Thanks greatly to all who donated.
During the month, Russ Budden from MyHammersXI ran another on-line quiz show with proceeds going towards Irons Supporting Foodbanks. Thanks again Russ!
We were able to arrange a halfway meeting point with the Newham Foodbank van to drop off a carload of donated dog food for distribution via various foodbanks in Newham.
We also provided 8 bags of new warm clothing to Lola’s Homeless in Canning Town.
Our good friend DJ Russ Budden ran a number of live You Tube fundraising quizzes for us. These are always good fun and we were pleased to get the support of a number of West Ham bloggers onboard to entertain us.
Thank you to all the viewers who donated.
Newham Bookshop Christmas Book Bundle
Back in the Upton Park days some of us used to call in at Newham Bookshop on Barking Road as part of a pre-match ritual. Sadly there isn’t the same footfall these days, but they have reported their best Christmas for sales this year. We were pleased to be in a position to make a donation to Viv’s campaign for providing book bundles for children who have no books of their own at home.
Spire London East Foodbank Appeal
At the beginning of this year we had a meeting with hospital staff about their willingness to support the Foodbank. This Christmas they have organised a stall collection for us, which was collected this week. Thank you to all concerned.
Advent Calendar And Selection Box Appeal
We are pleased to report that with the support of the fans and the club, we were able to supply Newham Foodbank with the 6,000 calendars and chocolate packs that they needed to supply local children this Christmas. In addition with agreement with the Foodbank we were also able to supply the 2,000 selection packs that the AAA Zone and Recorder Appeal needed to achieve their target this year. The Appeal this year provided for 2,869 Christmas stockings for local children who otherwise would not have received anything this Christmas. That’s over 1,000 more than last year.
Miss Newham International Sadie Sutherland
We were pleased to have Sadie’s help for several weeks in the run up to Christmas, who collected over 500 Advent Calendars, plus 3 van loads of toiletries and food on behalf of Newham Foodbank. Thanks Sadie!
Supporting Homeless Groups in Canning Town
During recent months we’ve had the chance to establish links with Lola’s Homeless and Amy’s Space, who work with the local homeless. We’ve been able to provide several boxes of new clothing and are looking at ways of working together in future.
We were pleased to see the graphics added on the Foodbank’s new van which will now be hitting the roads around Newham. The Foodbank has 7 centres around the borough and the availability of the van is a huge game-changer in distributing donations around the centres every day and also to collect from the three Beckton supermarkets with collection trolleys for the Foodbank.
Ambition Aspire Achieve and Recorder Toy Appeal
With agreement with Newham Foodbank we were able to make a donation towards the target of 2,000 Christmas stocking bundles for Newham children. We also were able to make a donation towards the cost of new toys they needed to buy.
Hornchurch Christmas Lights
For a few years London Stadium DJ Russ Budden has been displaying his impressive Christmas lights in front of his Hornchurch house. This year the display has the addition of a QR code panel, with donations to Fans Supporting Foodbanks. If you’re in the neighbourhood pop round and have a look. Many thanks Russ! (insert photo of the QR code board & lights)
Our good friend Neil Taylor @neilroytaylor from #longlivetheboleyn has secured a 4th collection point for Newham Foodbank at the Vic Tavern on London Road, Plaistow. Non-perishables can be dropped off between 12 noon and 6pm. Thanks to Neil and Woody from the Vic for your support. Neil has also set up a Facebook group the get Hammers fans back in to work (The Hammers For Work Facebook Group).
We were fortunate enough to obtain frozen foods from a Liverpool distribution warehouse plus new clothing from a Cheshire manufacturer and deliver ice creams, bread, crumpets, chickens and pies to former Hammers boss Lou Macari at the homeless centre he runs in Hanley (www.macari-foundation.co.uk). In future we plan to drop off more items on our way to Newham with more food and clothes.
Through their local contacts in Liverpool, Fans Supporting Foodbanks have given us access to frozen foods and new clothing on a regular basis which we plan to deliver to Newham Foodbank and other local charities. Our first visit took a van load of 100’s of pizzas and several bags of new clothes to Ilford and Newham, where they were distributed by the Foodbank and Redbridge charity groups at the Jack Carter Centre in Frenford. Thanks to Sam Tarry’s local team for organising this for us.
London Stadium DJ Russ Budden ran an on-line quiz show weekly fundraiser throughout the month to raise awareness of the work we do on behalf of Newham Foodbank. Jake Heath from the club kindly provided us with a signed shirt for each week’s raffle. The quizzes are still available on Russ’s My Hammers 11 Channel on You Tube, well worth a watch if you’ve not seen them!
Our team played a number of games as the season re-commenced behind closed doors. Regular social media appeals to donate to the Foodbank were made, with several £1,000’s added.
With still no games to collect at for the first few weeks we were encouraged by the number of on-line donations made to the give/net page with several £1,000’s added.
Through our friends at Fans Supporting Foodbanks we were able to collect 1,000 PPE masks made in Liverpool for delivery to the Beckton warehouse and onward distribution to East London and Essex hospitals and care homes. Big thanks to our volunteer Nigel Kahn for the local deliveries.
Our first Easter egg appeal for Newham Children totalled over 1,100 eggs which were distributed by Newham Foodbank. We acknowledge the generous support given by West Ham fans and friends, West Ham United, Expedient Security, Spire London East Hospital, LLDC and Newham Council.
With the Covid-19 lockdown forcing the postponement of games we took to social media to highlight the serious issues that the foodbank was facing with demand more than trebling. Since that time fans and friends have donated a further £13,000 to the foodbank for emergency food provisions.
The WHU Foundation also kindly donated one of their vehicles and driver to deliver food parcels to the Newham vulnerable on a weekly basis.
By the end of February we had collected over £2350 in matchday collections, plus over 400kg in food for the Foodbank.
When we played our home game with Liverpool in February we welcomed Liverpool Echo reporter Mark Johnson to talk about our foodbank activities. His article appeared in the LFC match programme Big Read feature for our fixture at Anfield later on that month.
In support of our friends at Fans Supporting Foodbanks we took our donation up to Anfield before our game there on 24th.
Before we played Brighton we were contacted by Alex, a BHA fan. He explained that his club didn’t have a foodbank but wanted to make a donation from his family to ours (photo) #fan activism at its best, thanks Alex!
Nicky from @westhamfantv interviewed us before the Everton game to discuss our aims in collecting on behalf of Newham Foodbank. We were grateful to get the support and interest and look forward to working on joint initiatives in the future.
Unmesh Desai, the London Assembly member for the City and East came over to meet us and endorsed our activity, also mentioning us in his weekly ‘View From City Hall’ column in the Newham Recorder. Sam Tarry, MP for Ilford South also visited us to offer his support
The club featured our activities in the match day programme and continued to feature us in their on-line Matchday Support social media links.
Everton visited us in January with substantial foodbank donations from their Fans Supporting Foodbanks group. (see photo). Having been collecting for nearly 6 years, they have been very helpful to us with advice.
Our first foodbank collection, before the Leicester City game on 28th December. We received substantial food donations from the Club and the Met Police plus over £500 in cash donations. We collected over 120 kg in food from our supporters.
