Harris Associates Donates £7,500 to Emmeline's Pantry & Helps Bring Christmas To Manchester Families

Published: 23/12/2022

As part of their 15 Year anniversary activity, Harris Associates have chosen two charities to support throughout 2023, donating £7,500 to each cause. Emmeline’s Pantry, based in Manchester is one of the charities that has been selected and on Wednesday 20th December, some of the Manchester team volunteered at one of their annual Christmas days where the families they support can come and choose food and Christmas presents for their children.

Emmeline’s Pantry is led by a dedicated group of women and supporters who started in a hallway, providing clothes to women. They are constantly expanding and nearly ten years later their foodbank now provides food, clothes, toiletries, and baby items for women in need and their families at Christmas each family can come and choose a large selection of food and gifts for their children, to enable them to celebrate a Christmas that otherwise wouldn't be possible.

After 10 years the days run with military precision, with every volunteer having an allocated station and roles throughout the day, making the experience as seamless and positive as possible for the women who queued up and waited patiently for their allocated slots.

After choosing the food they wanted, the clients then chose their fresh vegetables, a lot of which are grown in the onsite allotment, then they could choose a set of pyjamas for themselves plus 10 toys and books for each of their children.

Many women who use Emmeline’s Pantry have fled their homes with nothing and have had all choices taken away from them which is why the food bank never pre-bag any food and always lets their users choose everything that they take themselves, giving the choice back to them, something which they can sometimes find difficult after being without it for so long.

The team who volunteered were Chioma Ibe, Richard Stone and Chris Tighe who spent the day helping the ladies decide what would be the best books, cuddly toys and chocolate for their children, often meaning they were headfirst in the big containers, trying their best to find their favourite animal from unicorns and cats to dinosaurs and monkeys.

Chioma Ibe, Head of Marketing at Harris Associates said “We were thrilled to be able to help such an extraordinary charity like Emmeline’s Pantry and experience first-hand the amazing work they do and the support they provide to these families. Harris Associates' donation of £7,500 will help with the 275% increase in demand for 2022 which will only continue to rise in 2023 with the additional pressure of families' finances. It’s been a mixture of smiles and tears for me today and I feel lucky to have been able to help in a small part, with the rest of the volunteers we will continue to support such a great charity, led by such an entrepreneurial person like Karen.”