Helping local families this Christmas

Thomas Ridley is giving back to the local community this Christmas by supporting two big food-related projects

A large donation of fresh and ambient food was donated to the Gatehouse foodbank charity, to help them with their Christmas day lunch – something Thomas Ridley does every year to help support this vital community resource. This year, Thomas Ridley was even able to make the festive Gatehouse food donation in its special Christmas truck, which is celebrating the Thomas Ridley colours of red and green - and reminding people that Father Christmas wasn't originally red!

Justin Godfrey, Managing Director of Thomas Ridley commented: “We’ve always been passionate about supporting the local Bury St Edmunds community wherever we can and Christmas is a really important time for us to give back and help make sure that others are able to enjoy the festivities with a hot meal. We really admire the work that Gatehouse does and often make donations to them throughout the year. "

Amanda Bloomfield, CEO of Gatehouse, said: “We’re are extremely grateful to Thomas Ridley for their large donation towards our Christmas Day dinners and for the incredible amount of support that we have received from them throughout the year, and over a number of years. Their food donations really do make a huge difference to people we’re helping over the festive period, which is often one of the toughest times of year for anyone struggling with food and finances.”

Amanda is pictured above receiving the large food donation from Dave Campion of Thomas Ridley, in front of the Thomas Ridley Christmas-themed delivery truck and Jo Jackson and Tony Francis from the Thomas Ridley warehouse team, who picked the order.

Justin Godfrey of Thomas Ridley continued: “The other project we’ve been able to help this year, for the first time, is RIF – Reducing Isolation through Food. Sadly, not everyone has someone to share the holidays with and we really admire the thoughtfulness of this project, which is run by Abbeycroft Leisure, to take friendship and food to people living alone this Christmas. We were very happy to be able to donate some items towards their Christmas meal deliveries.”

Frank Carn-Pryor, Activity Officer from Abbeycroft, added: “Reducing Isolation through Food (RIF) is a new and incredibly important project (facilitated by Abbeycroft Leisure) taking freshly-cooked Christmas meals and food hampers to adults living in isolation across the local area. About 200 deliveries are taking place on Friday 23rd through the help of lots of volunteers and we are very grateful to everyone who has donated food and time towards this project, at what I know is a very busy time of year for all.”

Left is Elise Daines from Abbeycroft collecting the festive donation from Carl Grimwood of Thomas Ridley.