Welcome to our second weekly round-up, where we put together any of our notable feedback and newsworthy work from the past seven days.

“Wear a Jumper and eat Porridge”

In the same week an energy provider came under harsh criticism for its lack of sensitivity around soaring utility bills, local residents to our Ancoats hub have expressed serious concerns around their quality of living, claiming they must decide between being ‘freezing or homeless’.

Reports such as this echo the concerns of our clients, including Trisha – who we’ve been working with to improve their economic well-being:

“Trisha didn’t have enough money for food, gas, or electricity so we made a referral to the local food bank and, also, to The Biscuit Fund for a one-off grant towards utilities”

You can read Trisha’s full story on our website by clicking here.

1,200 items a day

What is now being described as the ‘cost of living crisis’, Food Club visits have remained consistently high going into 2022. Between our three hubs, an average of 1,200 food items a day are leaving our shelves to alleviate the financial pressure of a weekly shop for our clients.

We are always in need of ambient food items for our Food Clubs, so if you’re part of a community group, company, College or Church and would like to help keep us stocked, please get in touch by emailing information@mustardtree.org.uk.

Special thanks goes to this generous donor who sent us these wonderful gluten free items via Sainsbury’s, giving our clients a wider selection of items.

In last week’s post we mentioned about the importance of furniture donations for our Community Shops, so we were taken aback when a donor called Chris dropped off a bed – along with a brand new mattress, which he’d bought out of his own pocket – here’s to you Chris!

The best way to find out what stock we have in our Community Shops, is to follow our Instagram account @MustardTreeMCR – where we’ll upload pictures of new items each week.

As for donations, we’re particularly in need of white goods and kitchen appliances (kettles, toasters, microwaves, fridges, washing machines) – watch this video to see how these donations can make all the difference for someone in need.

Computer Confidence

When we found out that a client missed out on a job offer because they didn’t know how to access Zoom for their interview, we set up a new structured course to address digital illiteracy. The primary purpose of the sessions are to enable people to confidentially access government services online -such as Universal Credit – but also covers topics such as email creation and how to avoid online scams.

The above snapshot features graduates from our first set of Computer Confidence sessions – with volunteer James!

Manchester 10k and Charity Abseil

Do you want to fundraise for Mustard Tree? We are now filling spaces for the 2022 Manchester 10k and Charity Abseil, taking place in May and June. More information can be found by the below links, or you can email information@mustardtree.org.uk to find out more.

Click here for Manchester 10k/half-marathon info

Click here for Charity Abseil info

Final Word

We’re six short of 300 reviews on Google, with a 4.5 star average! We wanted to share this recent feedback from one of our volunteers, which sums up what we do quite well…

Tomorrow our Ancoats hub will be open 10am – 2pm for Food Club and the Community Shop – come down and say hello if you’re in the area!