StokeNewington.Info

Dear neighbours,

As some of you know, back in March we set up NGAG accounts with local shops to help people who were financially struggling. However, we soon realised this was unsustainable and wasn’t using our greatest resource- you!

That’s why set up the Newington Green Food Hub with our friends at The Mildmay Club.

With your help we put out another 5000 leaflets (that’s 15000 leaflets in the last eight weeks) and delivered more than 100 parcels in our first week. There’s some more information about our work here.

We have been absolutely overwhelmed with your donations and lovely messages. We would like to thank you all properly but even a simple list would double the size of this email.

Now, we want to expand because the situation for many families is dire. Hackney and Islington already had the third and fourth highest rates of child poverty in the whole country before the crisis and school closures and job losses have made the situation even worse.

But we need more funds. The money will go towards buying things that people ask us for that haven’t been donated. Everything will be purchased locally and we’ve negotiated discounts from local businesses. We won’t be using Amazon or the big supermarkets because we believe in putting any money we receive from you back into our local economy. If your income is secure please consider contribution to our GoFundMe page.

Beyond essential food and supplies, we want to be able to provide kids with small gifts for their birthdays and if we smash our fundraising target we’ll use any extra to buy used laptops and WiFi dongles so that more kids at Newington Green Primary and other local schools have access to all the brilliant new online learning resources. (It’s difficult to decipher the help that the Government has finally committed to on laptops but we think it won’t apply to any primary school kids unless they have a named social worker so please dig deep.)

Supporting local businesses

This week another local favourite has reopened. Acoustic is doing takeaways and delivery. Make sure to check out our updated local shops spreadsheet. A special shout out to superstar volunteers: Rob, Tom and Gavin for helping us with this.

Our very own Lizzy has been crowdfunding to ensure the future of Lizzy’s On The Green Cafe. Please donate if you can.

Comms and Social Media

Now that things are a bit calmer we’re going to be better at sharing and publicising our (your!) work. Please give us a like on Facebook and follow us on Instagram if you’re into that sort of thing.

If you’d like to join the comms working group let us know by replying to this email with ‘Comms‘ in the subject line.

Masks and Cakes for Carers

We are really excited to be partnering with the amazing Stitch by Stitch to make face masks. These have been going out in all of the Newington Green Food Hub packages and to our volunteers. It’s becoming clear that we will all need to be wearing face masks when out and about. If you want to join our Sewing Club to help make thousands of masks for the residents of Newington Green please have a look here and email us with the subject line ‘Sewing Club‘.

Thanks you so much to those of you who have been baking cakes for carers at The Mildmay Care Homes. We did a drop on Friday and are planning another one today. We have also donated a bunch of cloth face masks to the carers for their commutes and are passing any medical grade masks that are donated to us to them. They are very grateful for the support and have asked us to pass on their thanks to you.

In solidarity,

Team NGAG and NGFH

PS Some if you have asked about our AGM. It was due to be this month but it has been postponed until public meetings are allowed. When it comes, it will be a doozy (and very boozy!).

PPS If you need Islington recycling bags we have lots at the Mildmay Club. Come by on a Tuesday or Friday or let us know you aren’t able to leave the house and we’ll get some to you.

PPPS Islington is looking to recruit more foster parents. If this is something you’ve thought about before but never taken the plunge, now is the time. There’s more information here.