Hands on with City Harvest & Wandle Trust

Mustard Foods joined forces with City Harvest and Wandle Trust over the weekend, not only helping to deliver our food to charities in need but also taking an active part in cleaning up the local environment.

Last year we welcomed City Harvest to the fold, teaming up with the non-profit organisation to supply charities across London.

Every Friday Mustard Foods donates approximately 240kg of food, which is then sorted at City Harvest’s headquarters before being delivered to various community programmes including homeless shelters.

This weekend members of our team joined City Harvest, taking part in the complete process from our front door to those in need.

We sorted food into crates before doing the heavy lifting and loading the vans.

From there we were off on the day’s route, making deliveries to several charities while also collecting food donations from other businesses.

The weekend’s work, though, was by no means over.

On Sunday, Mustard Foods joined 40 volunteers and the Wandle Trust in a community clean-up, picking up litter in our local environment.

With fly-tipping a serious problem not just for the Wandle but most urban rivers, we chose this particular charity because the Wandle runs behind our Wimbledon headquarters.

While half the volunteers put on waders and ventured into the river, the rest cleaned the river banks and the surrounding park areas.

Unfortunately when we arrived all the waders were already taken – hopefully next time!

“It was incredible getting our hands dirty this weekend while doing good for the community,” said Emma Crosbie.

“Although we have been with City Harvest for over a year, this was the first time I have had the opportunity to see the end result and the food reaching the people that very much need it.

“There are a lot of people in this world, and even in our own London, who rely on organisations such as City Harvest so being in a position to help is a blessing.

“As for the community clean-up of the Wandle, that was a lot of sludge and even more fun but far too much litter.

“We are all aware of the fly-tipping problem and complain about it without doing much else. It was great to finally take action.”

All in all a great weekend filled with good deeds and even better memories.