#SoupKitchen21: Businesses can play their part in Sunderland Community Soup Kitchen appeal!

As many people who live and work in our wonderful city will be aware, Roker Report is once again raising money for our amazing partners at the Sunderland Community Soup Kitchen.

We would like to invite your business to support the work of this fantastic charity this Christmas, so it can continue helping to feed and clothe the most vulnerable people in our community throughout 2022.

Donate now: https://gofund.me/5989c97b

It costs around £5,000 a month to buy the food needed for the Soup Kitchen. The people and businesses of Sunderland and the supporters of the club around the world have responded with the kindness that is the hallmark of our wonderful city by donating over £56,000 to the cause so far this month.

We now turn to the brilliant companies that keep our city working to help us to achieve even more.

The Soup Kitchen does the most fantastic work through its “Albert’s Place” takeaway, its foodbank, and its food package and toy deliveries. Hundreds of families will eat a Christmas dinner next Saturday because of the work of the volunteers and the donations of people and businesses across our city and beyond. Read all about it in this fantastic article.

This year’s campaign has involved some of the biggest names in football and media and attracted articles in the Sunderland Echo and the Newcastle Chronicle. So far this December we have:

• organised a fantastic visit to the Soup Kitchen by Sunderland AFC team managers Lee Johnson and Melanie Reay
• completed our unique 24 Hour Twitter Space broadcast last weekend, including interviews with Peter Reid, Mel Reay, Fulwell73, Luke O’Nien, and Marco Gabbiadini
• published an emotional Roker Rapport podcast with Soup Kitchen founder Andrea Bell, and we kicked off the campaign by donating £13,000 of advertising revenue from our Roker Rapport podcast.
• written a series of articles across this website highlighting the impact of the Soup Kitchen on our community.

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Here’s how your business or workplace can help in this final week before Christmas...

You can help us raise as much money as possible this Christmas by making a corporate donation, which you can of course offset against your corporation tax bill.

You can help by spreading the message and sharing our GoFundMe link to your colleagues by email, through your intranet, office collections, or even your work WhatsApp group - and remind them to add the GiftAid to their donations too.

You can tweet about the appeal using the hashtag #SoupKitchen21 and share the link on your company’s Facebook or Instagram accounts too.

Here’s some text for you to copy, paste and adapt:

Please help to make sure everyone in Sunderland has hot food in their bellies and warm clothes for their children this Christmas. Sunderland fan website @RokerReport is raising money for the Sunderland Community. Donate here https://gofund.me/0cc0f0ee #SoupKitchen21

So far this year, a team from EDF energy has donated the money they would have spent on their boss’s Christmas gift, and Penshaw Accountancy also kindly donated to the fundraiser.

Other organisations, companies, individual business people, and family firms have donated substantial amounts anonymously.

Businesses that donate will receive a huge thank you and acknowledgment on our website and podcast (please let us know if you want your donation to remain anonymous).

Sunderland Community Soup Kitchen is registered with the Charity Commission, Charity Number 1185044. Please email us or send us a DM on Twitter if you have any questions.

Many thanks and Merry Christmas from everyone at the Sunderland Community Soup Kitchen and Roker Report for your generosity!