Charities can bank on support from Gentoo

From left, Gentoo staff John Walker, Lewis Walmsley, Dave Snowball, Jane Elliot, Margaret Thompson, Keith Pearson, Lee Sinclair and Jane Lertas-Robinson with some of the goods their team have collected.

The Art of Giving, a quarterly campaign run by social enterprise Gentoo Group with the support of Barclays, Berghaus and Northern Gas Networks, has seen food and school uniforms donated.

Throughout July, donators gave food for Wearside food banks and unwanted school uniform items for the St Cuthbert’s Care 5p Bus initiative, with 600-plus items collected.

More than 1,800 items of food were donated and distributed to three food banks across the city including Elim Church, Hetton New Dawn and Washington Community Food Project.

Almost 280kgs of food was gifted to each bank, which provide a minimum of three days emergency food and support. Andrew Hoseason, of Washington Community Food Project, said: “The food bank was running out of stock despite generosity of donations and was going to have to half the content of the food parcels.

“However, thanks to Gentoo’s donations we have doubled our stock, meaning customers will now get a full food parcel.”

With help from the Gentoo Supporting Tenants and Empowering People team, personalised hampers were also given to a number of less fortunate families.

Amanda Ladner, operations manager for volunteering, said: “We are delighted with how many generous donations we were able to collect.

“Each and every item will make a big difference to families across Sunderland and we are very grateful for the generosity shown by Gentoo staff, Barclays, Berghaus and Northern Gas Networks.”