Poverty Action Week starts on Monday!
Poverty Action Week, Charity Link’s key awareness and fundraising week, begins on Monday (25) and we really need your support.
Each year Poverty Action Week aims to highlight the issue of local poverty and get local individuals, schools and businesses thinking about and supporting the most vulnerable in their own communities. Are you pledging your support this year?
There are so many ways you can get involved:
Visit our Poverty Action Week Shop
From Monday 25th – Friday 29th January we will be hosting a ‘Poverty Action Week Shop’ within the Wot Space shop (part of the Highcross shopping centre, on Shires Lane in Leicester city centre). Come along between 11am – 3pm daily to meet members of the team, find out more about Charity Link and volunteering opportunities or donate food for the food bank.
Foody Tuesday – 26th January
Come and see us at our Foody Tuesday Food Bus on Humberstone Gate, Leicester between 11am – 3.30pm on Tuesday 26th January. You can drop off food donations for our food bank, share your thoughts on local poverty on our giant thoughts board and take part in quizzes…you could even win a £20 Love to Shop voucher*
If you can’t visit the bus, why not make sandwiches at home on Foody Tuesday instead of buying a shop bought meal, or take a flask instead of buying a coffee on the way to work and give us the money you’ve saved to help people in food poverty? You can easily donate – Text POVW16 and the amount you wish to donate (£1, £2, £3, £4, £5 or £10) to 70070. For example, POVW16 £5.
We are also grateful to Janine Finch, a local food writer who has contributed recipes in the Leicester Mercury and regularly features on BBC Radio Leicester, who is our Foody Tuesday Ambassador. Janine is helping to promote our activities for Foody Tuesday, as well as developing some tasty, low cost and simple meal ideas to highlight during Poverty Action Week and offer as ideas to clients visiting our city centre food bank in the future.
Wear a Funky Scarf Day – Friday 29th January
Friday 29th January is our second Wear a Funky Scarf Day, a fun dress up day with a serious message (we chose the scarf as many of the people we help cannot afford to keep warm over winter). We want as many individuals, businesses and schools to get involved – simply wear your most favourite or funky scarf and donate an amount of your choice for the pleasure (recommended donation £2). You can request a free fundraising pack with stickers by emailing rachel.markham@charity-link.org or simply take part and send us your donation (to donate by text, text FUNK16 and the amount you wish to donate (£1, £2, £3, £4, £5 or £10) to 70070. For example, FUNK16 £2 ). Local supporters this year include Jo Pratt, TV cooker and best-selling author, Rendall Munroe, Leicester’s ‘boxing binman’, Claire Lomas, ex-event rider who was the first (and only) paralysed person to walk the London Marathon, doing so in a robotic suit and Jon Ashworth MP, Leicester South, who will also be visiting our PAW shop on Wear a Funky Scarf Day.
Use social media? Help highlight our events and your activities/support by using the hashtags #povertyactionweek #foodytuesday and #funkyscarfday
We really do hope we can count on your support and please do encourage others to get involved if you can. There are so many vulnerable individuals and families that need our help. You can read about some of the lives we have changed here.
A great way to show your support is with a Poverty Action Week pin badge. Buy online or via the office, food bus or at the Poverty Acton Week shop.