A team of astute recruiters gave up their spare time through physical fitness to raise a significant and vital amount of money for Derby City Mission’s Food Bank, while covering more miles than they originally planned!

Derby City Mission are currently delivering between 40 – 60 Food Parcels per week which is a huge increase, as we start to see the real impact of the Pandemic on families. In 2020 the Poverty Prevention Team at Derby City Mission fed over 6000 people, a 51% increase on 2019.

On hearing this information, Astute Recruitment Limited were compelled to act and do something to support Derby City Mission in this time of great need and so the #Miles4Meals Appeal was launched.

Mary Maguire, Managing Director of Astute Recruitment Limited explains,

“By creating an opportunity for sponsoring our family and friends to walk, run or cycle, not only were we able to raise money for Derby City Mission, but encourage our team to stay healthy physically and mentally. The motivation of knowing that we were able to support Derby City Mission meet this need gave us the boost we needed to even exceed our target!”

From Monday 1st February 2021 until Good Friday on the 2nd April 2021, the team at Astute Recruitment used their lunchtimes and spare time to walk, run and cycle miles while being sponsored to cover the distance. Originally planning to cover the equivalent of John O’Groats to Lands End, the team were so proactive, that they set a new distance target of Southern Italy to Norway!

After 2 months and lots of virtual ‘international’ miles later, Astute Recruitment were able to donate £1,000 after covering a huge total of 8914 miles!

Sarah Fowler, Head of Poverty Prevention at Derby City Mission says,

“Partnerships like this are vital to the work we do. With such a dramatic increase in need, we are having to look for additional funding to sustain the support for those individuals and families that find themselves without food. This money will go a long way to providing approx. 50 food parcels for them and we are so grateful. Thank you”

If you’d like to support the work of the Poverty Prevention team at Derby City Mission, please donate by visiting www.derbycitymission.org.uk/foodbank