This year has been hard for everyone in many different ways, so as a business we have tried to help out charities, giving back wherever we can. All of these charities are doing fantastic work and we are so proud to be able to support them and the incredible work they do, so read on to learn more about them…
Faraway Children’s Charity
The Faraway Children’s Charity are a local, Northamptonshire based charity who help disadvantaged young children in need to survive, thrive and smile. They distribute resources such as toiletries, clothes, shoes, toys, games, books, Christmas presents, Easter eggs and food, as well as planning festive celebrations such as Christmas parties to provide fun and smiles.
Duncan & Eli have been supporters of the Faraway Children’s Charity for many years and as a business we usually donate Christmas gifts to the charity to distribute to local children that may otherwise not receive a gift during the festive period. This year we were also able to fund a number of Christmas parties put on by the Faraway Children’s Charity, helping to give the children something really exciting to look forward to.
Find out more about the Faraway Children’s Charity here: http://www.farawaychildrenscharity.com/index.html
Food4Heroes
When panic buying during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic left many key workers unable to purchase even basic foods such as fresh fruit and vegetables, many pubs, restaurants and food outlets who had closed their doors to customers wanted to show support for the NHS by providing cooked meals that staff could enjoy on a rare break, after their shift or take home. This outpouring of support led to the creation of Food4Heroes. The not-for-profit organisation brought together furloughed staff from caterers, pubs and restaurants to cook nutritious meals for NHS staff.
In Northamptonshire, chef Danny Tompkins joined Food4Heroes and was quickly cooking 250 meals a day for local NHS staff from Althorp House where the Earl & Countess Spencer gave him permission to use their kitchen for all the cooking. We were very pleased to be able to donate Mellow Yellow Rapeseed Oil to Danny for all his cooking and over a period of 40 days, Danny cooked a huge 10,000 meals for Northampton General Hospital staff.
Danny is still cooking for Food4Heroes using oil donated by us, now providing food banks across Northamptonshire with 550 meals every week!
For more information on Food4Heroes, visit: https://food4heroes.org.uk/
FareShare – Fighting hunger, tackling food waste.
FareShare is a national charity that redistributes surplus food to almost 11,000 charities around the country that can turn it into meals. The food they redistribute goes to school breakfast clubs, older people’s lunch clubs, homeless shelters and community cafes. Every week, they provide enough food to create almost a million meals for vulnerable people.
Over the last 12 months, we have donated over 200 kgs of Farrington’s Mellow Yellow products. This was product that was too close to its best before date to send to shops, but still with plenty of life left for use. We hate the idea of food waste and so being able to send our surplus stock to FareShare has been fantastic as we know it is going to those in need and will be helping to fight hunger whilst also reducing food waste.
For more information on FareShare, visit their website here: https://fareshare.org.uk/
Mind – for better mental health
Mind is a mental health charity in England and Wales. Mind offers information, advice and support to anyone experiencing a mental health problem and lobbies government and local authorities on their behalf. Through helplines, community support, education and advice, Mind helps millions of people every year access the support they need to help them through any and all mental health problems.
In December we donated to Mind, helping to fund some of their work. Duncan was very keen to donate to a charity that supported those struggling with their mental health especially this year when the support given from organisations such as Mind have been absolutely critical.
For more information on Mind, visit: https://www.mind.org.uk/
Give Help Share
Give Help Share is a charity that was set up in 2020 by two teachers, Amanda & Jacqueline, to distribute food packages to families in need via schools and children’s centres in London and increasingly further afield. They are now supplying more than 2000 families every month. Amanda & Jacqueline wanted to put health and nature at the heart of their food packages so everything is healthy, nutritious and vegan. We have donated bottles of Mellow Yellow Rapeseed Oil as well as Mellow Yellow Chilli & Cumin Dressing to Give Help Share this year, which we really hope were enjoyed by the recipients.
For more information on Give Help Share, visit https://www.givehelpshare.com/home
Nominate A Friend
Back in May, we most of our office was working from home, which allowed our production team and core office staff to remain on the farm producing food for you, safely. Everyone was finding it difficult to be isolated from our friends and families but we found that food and cooking bought us together, from afar. So we set up a giveaway of 20 Mellow Yellow gift sets. We asked our followers on social media to nominate a friend, family member or neighbour that they missed sharing a meal with to receive one of these gift sets.
We were overwhelmed by the incredible nominations we received. Hundreds of heartfelt messages about key workers, missed family members and friends and those going out of their way to support others. We randomly selected 20 winners and sent a Mellow Yellow gift set to their nominee.
We absolutely loved being able to bring a little happiness to people’s day and found it incredibly inspiring to read all the nominations. We wrote a blog post with more detail which you can read here: https://www.farrington-oils.co.uk/heartfelt-isolation-nominations/