Local businesses have always played a crucial role supporting Sufra NW London and those we help – providing everything from food donations for those who can’t afford food to raised beds for our Community Garden!

Sadly, Covid-19 has placed unprecedented pressures on Sufra and demand for food aid has gone through the roof. We are now supporting thousands more people to make ends meet during the pandemic (you can read more about what we are doing here).

Although demand for food aid is at an all-time high, donations are diminishing. So, we are asking local businesses for some extra help to get us – and those we support – through this crisis.

There are many ways you can get involved - just get in touch with fahim@sufra-nwlondon.org.uk if you can help with any of the following (or even anything that isn't on the list).

1. Space

We need more space to run our vastly expanded services. Our challenge is securing medium-term access at very low (or no) cost. Can you provide any of the following:

• Warehouse or storage space (including containers) that we can use to store our stocks? (Sufra redistributes nearly 30 tonnes of food a month!)
• Office or shop space from where we can run new or existing services?
• Professional kitchen facilities or even access to a restaurant that isn’t being used?

2. Transport

With so many people having to isolate, we are delivering the majority of our food aid by car. We are also transporting large amounts of stock.

Having access to a jumbo transit van would help tremendously – do you have any that are not in use? We also need volunteer drivers with cars who can help deliver food aid to those in need.

3. Volunteers

Food banks are always in need of more volunteers. Sufra has a wide range of volunteering roles available - you can see a full list of them here.

Aside from drivers, we have urgent need for volunteers who can work from home to support our guest by phone (all training provided). If any of you speak Arabic, that would be very helpful!

4. Goods and Equipment

There are many smaller items we need, either to help run our services or provide to those in need, including:

• Carrier bags, including better quality ones for the food bank (even better if you can get them branded for us).
• Sack barrows that we can use to move stock.
• Plastic takeaway containers for our hot food meals that we deliver to the homeless.
• Good quality laptops, PCs and mobile phones.

5. Food Donations

Food is flying off our shelves and we are urgently in need of more stock. You can see a list of the items we include in our food parcels here.

You can donate food in person or even online, as explained here.

We also need bulk catering ingredients we can use in our kitchen to cook hot meals for those without cooking facilities.

6. Food Collection Champions

Can you set up a food collection point on your street, at work or in any other public space and encourage people to donate items?

You could then drop off the collection or, for larger collections, we can send you our famous yellow wheelie bins which we can collect when full.

You can even become a Food Collection Champion via your social media channels using an online shopping request, as explained here.

7. In Kind Support

Again, there are lots of ways for businesses and tradespeople to support, such as:

• Printing: we often have important information we need to print in bulk and distribute to guests, can you help?
• Painting, decorating, plumbing and electrician services (we even need new flooring in our main building).

8. Support our Covid-19 Appeal

One of the best ways to support food banks is with regular financial donations. Without these, we wouldn’t be able to cover our core costs and purchase the food and other things our guests need.

Simply donate what you can through our Covid-19 Appeal page (please circulate among friends and family).

Again, if you can help with any of the above please contact fahim@sufra-nwlondon.org.uk

We work closely with other food banks in Brent, so anything we can’t use will always be shared with other food aid organisations.

Thank you!

The Team at Sufra NW London