Hello. My name's Simon Danes and I'm running The Great Bedford Foodbank £7433 Christmas Challenge; it lasts for three months until Christmas Day. The figure’s been set at £7433 because the Foodbank fed 7433 people in the last twelve months – so we’re hoping to raise the same number of pounds as the number of people they helped!

Bedford Foodbank’s currently feeding around 600 people a month in the local area. More than a third of them are children; the Foodbank fed 2792 children in the past year. It seems particularly sad that so many children need their help.

The Foodbank's clients receive the equivalent of three days’ food shopping. They can also be helped with things like toiletries, toilet paper, cleaning products, women’s sanitary products, nappies and baby food when they’re needed. Small grants available to help with fuel costs in real emergencies.

The Foodbank is very well supported in terms of food donations and they're very grateful. However, their budget’s now around £75,000 a year. They're entirely dependent on gifts and don’t receive any regular local or national government grants.

If you'd like to gift aid your Just Giving donation, you can download a gift aid form from Bedford Foodbank's website. The address is bedford.foodbank.org.uk

Finally, thank you very, very, very much!

UPDATE: ENORMOUS AND SINCERE THANKS TO EVERYONE WHO HAS CONTRIBUTED! With the other sources of funding, we're about half way towards our target in the middle of November!