At 6pm on Thursday December 22, on Chesterfield Road ‘The Brownival House Band and Friends’ will be performing Christmas Carols and festive songs, accompanied by mulled wine and a mince pies.

This year we have decided to support Family Food Action, a local Bristol charity that was set up during lockdown to help relieve food poverty. The charity was started from a St Andrews home, via local street food collections. With an amazing group of volunteers and donors, it has grown to provide food for families at 5 local community centres: The Vench, St Paul’s and Southmead Children’s Centres, Felix Road Adventure Playground and May Park Primary School.
Shockingly, in the last year, food poverty in the U.K. has more than doubled from 4.2 million people to 9.7 million people. That’s 1 in 4 families who struggle to feed themselves – we know that these numbers will continue to rise.

We live on a wonderful street, that has a WhatsApp group, if someone wants to 'borrow a cup of sugar' because '...it's dark and I don't want to walk to the shops...' then someone on our street will always donate that sugar. We are a fortunate street. For many people, asking a question like that isn’t easy, or simply isn't an option.

The idea of people going hungry this Christmas in a country where we can easily afford enough food for everyone is wrong.
So, our plan is this year is to support Family Food Action to enable them to provide fresh fruit and vegetables to one of their five hubs that currently supports a large children's centre and the local community less than two miles from our home.

To do this it would cost £150 a week, so if we raise £1,950 we can do this for 3 months, £3,900 for 6 months and if we raised £7,800 we would be able to support them for a year.

We know it’s a lot to ask but we think with our fantastic street and our network of wonderful friends and family we can make a difference. I work for Microsoft, an incredibly inclusive and wonderfully community minded employer who will match all donations made to this page. Every £ you donate will be doubled.

Thank you for your support and Merry Christmas.

Andrew & Bryony X.