Sept 2025



In this issue we are advertising an exciting new staff role, celebrating the opening of our new St Ann's food bank and the new home of our St Margaret's Aspley food bank, as well as appealing for your support with keeping our buildings and services running...

Harvest blessings

Dear Supporter,

As a Christian charity, we are always mindful of the many blessings we receive. Harvest time has traditionally been a time of thanking God for the provision of food but also for all other gifts and generosity.

As one of Hope's valued supporters, you are a very real blessing to us too - and we are hugely thankful for your support through the giving of food, time, money or prayer.

Your generosity and support enables our team of over 350 volunteers to bless others in their local communities who need it the most.

Thank you for your continued support as we look to bring Hope to those in need across Nottingham.

"The land yields its harvest;

 God, our God, blesses us”

Psalm 67:6

We are recruiting - please help by spreading the word!

Hope Nottingham are looking for a passionate and dedicated individual to join our team as our new Community Activities & Volunteer Coordinator. This part-time role will support a variety of volunteer-led community activities at our community hubs at Beeston and Carlton.

This will include but is not limited to community meals, friendship groups, allotment activities and development of our Hope House garden project, as well as faith-based activities such as Kintsugi Hope courses.

You can find all the details and how to apply here

Please do share this opportunity with others who may be interested!

St Margaret's food bank on the move!

Due to the planned demise of their Phoenix Hall, and a desire to connect more with the church's mission work, St Margaret's Food bank in Aspley have relocated into the main church building.

Our Aspley based food bank first opened in 2014 in the Salvation Army centre on Aspley Lane. It moved to St Margaret's Church in 2017 and has been based in the church's Phoenix Hall ever since.

The church, part of the Woven group of churches in Nottingham, has warmly welcomed our team of regular Monday and Thursday food bank volunteers to run the food bank alongside the church's Woven Café on Thursdays. With newly built storage, the team are settling in to their new home - helping us build closer links between those using the food bank and the wider church community.

We want to say a huge thank you to the volunteer team at St Margaret's, the Woven team and everyone else who helped in building and moving shelving, food stocks and everything else - no small undertaking!

Pictured: the cafe space at St Margaret's - the new setting for the foodbank; and Ben from the foodbank team showing off the new food storage space.

St Ann's Food Bank opens its doors!

There was a very warm welcome despite the cooler weather at the first session of our new St Ann's food bank. We are delighted to have partnered with St Ann with Emmanuel Church in St Ann's to open a new weekly food bank session. We have been aware for some time that many of our guests from the St Ann's area of the city have had to travel some distance to their nearest Trussell food bank, so it has been fantastic to open a new location in the heart of the community every Wednesday between 10am and 12 noon. Plans are afoot to bring welfare and benefits advice into the food bank via our friends at St Ann's Advice Centre too.

We want to say a huge thank you to Reverend Maureen, the team at St Ann with Emmanuel and the new volunteer team for helping get this much needed session up and running.

Fixing the floor

Our community hubs in Beeston and Carlton are not only home to their local food banks but are the location for a huge array of activities and sessions providing support for their local communities. From our community cafes and monthly community meals, to art groups and friendship clubs, we are proud both our hubs have become real centres of support, friendship and hope for local people.

However, upkeep of these premises, both older buildings does come with significant challenges and costs. We are currently having to have major work done on the floor in the main hall at Hope House, where sadly the original parquet and cork floor has come to the end of its serviceable life. Re-concreting the floor will be an expensive job and not being able to use the space in the meantime is impacting many of our community activities.

Any donation you are able to make will really help us get this valuable community space back into action. Please mark any gift for 'the floor' and it will go straight in our premises pot. Thank you!

Harvest for Hope

We know many of our supporters organise Harvest collections for local food banks at this time of year as we give thanks for provision we are blessed with and remember those in need. Each of our food banks across the city are hugely appreciative of any donations they receive from local people, schools, businesses and organisations. There are resources available to download via our website if you are planning a harvest collection.

You can also support Hope's work by giving financially. Financial donations allow us to meet our day-to-day running costs including staffing, running our activities, utility bills and keeping our van on the road.

Donate online here or find out more about ways to give on our website.

Acts of kindness...

Hope Nottingham is proud to work with Acts435, a national charity offering small scale funding for people in need of support for specific one-off costs. Support from Acts means we are able to help food bank guests with costs for specific needs that they would otherwise not be able to afford.

Over the summer, we have been able to help:

• A man and his autistic son replace a cooker damaged in a household flood;
• A lady who had been rehoused after feeling domestic violence afford a washing machine;
• A single parent afford a new carpet after being rehoused into an unfurnished property;
• A foodbank user who couldn't afford the specialist prescription glasses required for his health condition;

Acts435 allows people to donate to specific causes in their local area. You can find out more via the Acts435 website.

Dates for your diary...

Autumn is a busy time for our food bank network and our supporters. Here are some dates of upcoming events to get in your diary!

Tesco Winter Collection



Each year Tesco partners with Trussell to hold a winter collection in Tesco Supermarkets across the UK. This year the collections will be held in-store on Thursday 27th to Saturday 29th November. As well as encouraging people to donate food in Tesco stores, we also require volunteers in-store to greet customers, hand out shopping lists, receive donations and thank shoppers. We currently need volunteers who could help for 2-hour slots on Thursday 27th, Friday 28th or Saturday 29th November at Beeston, Toton and Carlton Tesco Extra stores. If you are able to help, please do contact us.

Fundraising concert

We are so grateful that on the 29th November, our friends at the very talented Carlton Male Voice Choir are holding their winter concert "You Do Not Walk Alone" in support of Hope Nottingham.

It promises to be an excellent afternoon of live music at The Duchess Theatre in Long Eaton - and all in a good cause!

Tickets are available to buy online here or scan the QR code on the poster.

Join our volunteer team...

We couldn't do the work we do without the dedicated effort of hundreds of volunteers. We are currently particularly looking for:

To enquire about any of our volunteer vacancies, please email us.

Our volunteer vacancies change regularly so for further details of these and other current vacancies, please do see our Volunteering webpage.

Final thoughts...

This months reflection comes from our Support Manager, Iain, who inspired by our hard working allotment volunteers, reflects on harvest. You can read his short reflection here.

Hope Nottingham | 0303 040 1110 | www.hope-nottingham.org.uk