Torbay Foyer Health Champion - My encounter with the big boys.

Sarah Bugler
Torbay Foyer Health Champion

My encounter with the big boys

Dear Mr Sainsbury’s, Mr Tesco and Mr Morrison’s

My name is Sarah Bugler, we have a Foyer that provides supported accommodation for twenty single young homeless people, we are embarking on a new initiative supported by the lottery and the Foyer Federation… a most exciting event to try and encourage young people to learn how to cook well balanced, healthy meals on a budget, these young people are future customers.

Is there anything you can do to help support this very worthwhile cause, I would be happy to come and visit to give you more details..

We all know how the rest of the story goes.

Response

You are just one of around 100 requests we have each week to help a charity
Put it in writing and send it to head office
No one can make that decision here and now the managers out (do you have a deputy? yes but he is out too!)
All discounts have to be agreed through head office in advance at least three months
Sorry No
We will call you back (never did)
We have our own campaign

So when all else fails, someone one told me to try and cut out the middle men, so my task was to do just that, I will go straight to source, as we were unable to afford to send me off to sunny Spain etc to get the fruit, I found a local supplier and fruit factory within two miles of the Foyer

I was invited to the factory and shown how the produce was sorted, packed etc. The supplier was extremely helpful and happy to support a local good cause. So thank you to Frank Mann for supplying more fruit than I think a supermarket could stock and at cost price.

We used the fruit on our launch and taster day. Each resident received a fruit goodie bag, smoothes and taste tested the exotic fruits.

Due to the abundance we were able to provide a supported housing project with a goodie bag and two more boxes of a variety of fruit were delivered to two homeless charities.