Seven of us met at the Quaker Centre for our group run to Kingsgate Student Pantry. All the students have finished for the year and were heading home so the foodbank needed to be packed up for the summer.

Sarah greeted us when we arrived and we were soon put to work. Emma, Ed and Claire wiped down the fridges in the sun room, Hazel and Ben wiped the fridges by the stairs and Dave and Luke wiped down the buckets and containers. We powered through the tasks so Sarah brought over a big box of herbs and spices and we decanted the big bags into smaller plastic packets for individual use.

Soon we were all done and it was time to run home. Great session everyone! We'll be back in October to help organise the food bank when the students are back. Hope to see you there.

It was back to Kingsgate Church on Tuesday evening, where our host Sarah had some quite different tasks for us at this valuable food bank facility for local students.

Julie and Sabir were quick to work, sorting out noodles and weighing out bags of 'spicy seed mix', an alliterative combination that Jade, Luke, Rachel and Dave will not forget as they wrote out ingredient labels for the new packets.

Some super scripting solidly served - sterling stuff, squad!

As Tom and Claire checked over some new stock and moved it into crates upstairs, Jade smashed our cardboard boxes into smithereens and Luke finished wiping the fridges.

There’s always a nice welcome after climbing the infinite stairs in the church - we even got name tags and the offer of some spare pots of plant-based non-alcoholic brandy cream - and we’ll be back for another visit soon once the students disappear for the summer.

It felt like winter rather than the start of spring as a few hardy souls braved the rain to help out at one of our semi-regular tasks at Kingsgate Church’s student foodbank.

Sarah had a few things on the agenda for us and Emma, Emily and Jade were quickly away with cleaning fridges and storage areas on one of the church’s many levels.

Dave and Tom spent the session assembling a new set of shelves, completion of which they were definitely more impressed by than others, while Beth and Rachel organised and checked best-before dates of new products that had been donated.

Everyone chipped in for the final effort of lifting new trays of donations into position, including perhaps the largest collection of tinned peas in existence anywhere in the world!

On a pretty miserable evening, our presence was very much appreciated in what turned out to be a good fun task.

It was our pleasure to drop in on our group run this week to help the new student foodbank at Kingsgate Church, which is sadly needed to tackle student food poverty in Kingston.

A running and walking group made their way there to help volunteers Sarah and Alison tidy up and help with a stocktake, getting the shelves ready for more donations arriving this week. We discovered quite a few Goodgymers (Julie, Dave and Jade!) had experience of auditing and felt quite at home with a spreadsheet - bit of a change from our usual manual handling tasks!

It was great to welcome Luke to the group, who joined Claire, Jas, Jade, Rachel and Petra sorting out the shelves. Ellie and Emma armed themselves with cloths and cleaning products to wipe down the fridges and freezers.

Even though it has only been open a couple of months the weekly food pantry has been overwhelmingly popular, providing students with food, personal hygiene and cleaning items as well as access to optional pastoral support and signposting to additional services available.

We have said we’ll come back when they need some extra hands to do another blitz. Luckily not as cold this week as we ran back along the river to the Quaker Centre and did our cool-down!

4 Goodgymers got straight into the deep end on friday evening in this new year by delving into the deep freezers to give them a deep clean.

It was for a new student food bank set up to tackle hidden food poverty within the local area. Kingsgate Church are supporting local students and even though it has been open a couple of months it has been overwhelmingly popular showing that they can do great things to help tackle food poverty with young adults in education.

It sounds like Kingsgate Student Pantry are going to be busier than ever when the students come back to University next week.