Help fight hunger on community missions

This week GoodGym are supporting FareShare in their quest to fight hunger and end food waste.

FareShare is the UK's largest charity that saves good food from going to waste and redistribute it to frontline charities that turn it into meals.

Food poverty and hunger is a massive and growing issue, with 8.4 million people in the UK struggling to afford to eat, and of those 4.7 million people are living in severe food insecurity with their food intake greatly reduced. 1 in 6 parents in the UK have gone without food themselves to afford to feed their families. It’s estimated that over 500,000 people in the UK are now reliant on food parcels, and over 2 million people in the UK are estimated to be malnourished, and 3 million are at risk of becoming so.

At the same time, 1.9 million tonnes of food is wasted by the food industry in the UK each year. FareShare are working hard to redress that shameful imbalance, and eradicate food poverty in the UK.

One food inequality expert, Sir Michael Marmot, stated, "People at the upper end of the income scale have no idea of what's going on down at the bottom of the scale. They don't realise how much people are really hurting."

From Thursday 29th November until Sunday 2nd December, GoodGym will be working with FareShare on their #Everycanhelps campaign, a national drive in partnership with Tesco to boost donations of in-demand items to feed vulnerable members of our communities.

Everything FareShare collect will go to helping families and individuals who have less food than they need over the winter season.

Community missions:

Through specially organised community missions, GoodGym Ealing are going to Tesco Extra Syon Lane and GoodGym Richmond are helping out at Teddington Metro to hand out FareShare 'shopping lists' with suggested donations. Customers can then buy items from this list to leave at the in-store food collection.

Food from these collections will then be taken to 21 FareShare Regional Centres where volunteers sort it to then redistribute it to 3500 charities across the country.

However, our mission to help end hunger does not end here. Many of our group run tasks and community missions look to aid those who are in need of sustenance and to lower the evils of food waste. Last week GoodGym Colchester ran 3.8k to help out at Colchester foodbank and take part in some fartlek training, and this weekend GoodGym York are supporting York foodbank with their annual food drive.

What is a community mission?

Community missions are group tasks that can be organised by any member of the GoodGym taskforce.

This winter we are encouraging more runners than ever to set up more missions throughout the colder months to help those in need.

Community missions are a great way to get involved with organising your own tasks in your local area with your friends, family, and fellow runners. Any member of the taskforce can set up their own event and invite other runners to join, on any day of the week that suits them.

If you're a GoodGym member already, you may see this as an exciting way to keep on running getting fit and doing good over Christmas when our group runs take a short break. If you're not a member, community missions are an excellent way to be introduced into the friendly GoodGym spirit and get involved in your local community over the festive period.

However, you don't need to be a member of the taskforce to take part in a community mission. Take a look at some of the community missions already organised here.

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Get involved:
-Find out about GoodGym in your area
-Find out about starter sessions and shorter runs