Acts of Kindness was set up in 2011 with a number of trustees from churches within Redditch, after seeing the challenging circumstances a number of people faced in our town.

Initially, we helped people with food parcels, clothes and small items of furniture as we were able to. However in 2013 there were major benefit changes throughout the country which meant that the need to provide food parcels for people increased by 297%.

In response to this, Acts of Kindness then partnered with Trussell Trust, who are a national charity that then predominately provided food for people in crisis where each person is given ten meals over a three day period of non-perishable foods.

The need for food parcels continued to increase and in July 2014 Acts of Kindness became a fully registered Charity:1157916.

Three years on Acts of Kindness have been able to help over 6280 people with emergency food parcels and given out over 79 Tonnes of food.

We work together with over 40 referral agencies who send clients to our distribution centres for food. We are then able to help with signposting, occasional energy provision, benefits checking and cooking courses.

Acts of Kindness for the last seven years have provided new toys for children and food parcels at Christmas. Last year, December 2016, we were able to give 373 children brand new toys and 640 people Christmas food.

In 2014 we were able to employ a part time foodbank manager and have over 40 excellent volunteers who serve our community. We are able to do much of this work because of them and because of the generosity of individuals and the Redditch community.