This week’s session was a real topsy-turvy one full of surprises, snacks and a serious amount of cheese!

Things started with the "second" delivery turning up before the "first" - an uncharacteristically early arrival just before 10:30am! Then came a huge drop-off from a local school’s Autumn Harvest collection, packed with donated tins and dry goods, as well as the regular bread delivery. By the time the "first" delivery finally rolled in around noon, there was barely any shelf space left! Crates of tinned food had to be stacked and stored for next week. A lovely problem to have.

Among the fresh goods were an abundance of M&S cheese, wafer-thin ham and (of course) more satsumas than anyone knew what to do with. There was plenty of tropical fruit, including two mystery items which were eventually identified as guavas with the help of Google Lens. Between deliveries, the team refuelled with ginger shots and tea to keep spirits high.

Thaiza joined regulars, Martin and Iram, and threw herself straight into the action, becoming a cardboard-crushing, crate-unloading, tin-sorting superstar. It was an unpredictable morning, but was full of cheddar-based cheer!

Each Monday morning, GoodGym lend a hand to the South Ealing Food Cupboard, helping the wonderful team of volunteers prepare surplus food for the local community. This week, Nicola, Andy, and Iram braved the rain to get stuck in, and it was a lively morning!

The volunteers were out in force today, peaking at ten people at one point, a record turnout for a rainy day! Andy returned victorious to find the shelf he fixed in a previous session still standing strong (and now proudly displaying popcorn!). It was Nicola’s first GoodGym mission, but you’d never have guessed it, she got straight to work flattening cardboard, unloading the van and offering to lend a hand wherever it was needed.

Despite the soggy weather, Andy and Nicky fearlessly tackled the unloading outside. Inside, the haul was a swede-heavy selection, with plenty of oranges, cabbages and bread. Sadly, not all the fruit was fit for fame, so the team sorted out the squashed and mouldy ones. The real surprise of the day, though, was a giant white sheet cake which looked suspiciously like a wedding cake! The Polygonian Friends Lunch team were quick to claim it for dessert on Wednesday.

Need some motivation to get up from bed on a gray Monday morning? Picture the early bird Harvey, running to South Ealing and meeting Kash at St Mary's Church, where a pallet stacked with fruit and veg awaited to be unpacked. The goods - rescued surplus food from supermarkets - were to be distributed to those in need in the early afternoon. But the delivery had to be first unloaded to the Food Cupboard. And who can handle this better than a pair of swift GoodGymers?

The stretch wrap on the pallet gathered plenty of water, so had to be removed carefully to avoid causing a deluge at the churchyard. The operation revealed exotic treasures, including fifteen boxes of tangerines! No one was really sure whether those small oranges were tangerines, satsumas, mandarins or easy peelers. But we marketed them as tangerines. Wait, did GoodGymers became salespeople?

After quickly unpacking the pallet, moving out crates, and breaking down boxes, Harvey and Kash asked Wayne for another job. Rather than suggesting sorting the fruit or hoovering, Wayne looked at Kash and said:

Can I ask you a big, big favour? Can you give out those tangerines to the children going to school? There will be a big surge of them soon.

That's how Kash and Harvey, not fearing any job and determined to avoid food waste, ended up as vendors.

Instead of the promised surge of children, came a surge of rain. The undeterred easy peeler dealers put themselves out there, and welcomed with a smile both downpour and rejection from cautious parents and children.

Would you like a tangerine? Or two? It's free - and has vitamin C! - Kash.

Have an orange,
Fight the scurvy,
Join the navy,
Become a pirate!
Tried this last week. Didn't work. No one wants to be a pirate these days. - volunteer Gary.

To stick to the marine theme, the promised wave of parents with schoolchildren eventually arrived closer to 9 am. There were even some takers, so Harvey scrambled to pass Kash more and more citruses. A couple of ladies took even a small bag of tangerines each for their families or to distribute at the school. The GoodGymers gave out almost half of a box, which was a pretty good result. Five minutes to nine, it became apparent that whoever was rushing past the church was already late to school. Not wanting to be late for work or whatever was next in their day, Harvey and Kash wrapped up and left enriched with sales experience.

What a beautiful morning to start the week! Kash joined Roger, Gary, and Wayne at 8 am to unpack a neatly stacked pallet of exotic produce and fill the shelves of the Community Food Cupboard at St Mary’s Church. Fairly familiar chillies and okra from today's delivery were accompanied by mysterious fruit and leaves from Spitalfields Market. The volunteers identified from the labels on the boxes that the extraordinary goods were cherimoyas and aloe vera.

Aloe vera - not sure if anyone will take those. Isn’t that for skincare? To put on a face?
Do the Food Cupboard clients need a beauty treatment?

Were the customers beautiful enough without aloe vera, or in need of food in the first place? Maybe both. One lady started queuing at 8:20 am for the 1 pm distribution of donated surplus food! Kash spotted her when carrying out the old crates outside the church and stacking them by the road for collection. The next stage was flattening empty cardboard boxes into more flattering shapes.

The last bonus task Wayne gave Kash was to clean mouldy dust off the skin of perfectly good oranges that were in a box with spoiled fruit. Those citruses certainly received their beauty treatment and were ready to dazzle the clients! Having contributed her little bit to one of the most beautiful initiatives in South Ealing, Kash wrapped up and was back to start work just in time!

Each Monday morning, GoodGym lend a hand to the South Ealing Food Cupboard, helping the brilliant team of volunteers prepare surplus food for the local community. This week, Martin and Iram’s help was especially valuable, the volunteer numbers were a little thin on the ground! For a while it looked like it would just be three of us tackling the heavy lifting, but luckily one more volunteer arrived just as the van pulled up. And just in time, it was a bumper load, completely filling the van. In fact, the driver hadn’t even managed to fit everything in!

As we began unloading, we were met with an unexpected challenge: a wave of rebellious limes making a break for freedom, rolling across the van and down onto the pavement. There was also a heart-stopping moment when a trolley, laden with food, toppled over... but apart from a couple of unlucky yoghurt pots, there were no major casualties.

The haul itself was a good one: piles of cabbages and green beans, a fridge full of yoghurt, boxes of loose sausage rolls and lots of other goodies. Thanks to teamwork, quick thinking, and a dash of lime-chasing agility, everything was unloaded and sorted by midday.

A pallet packed with donated food for St Mary's Food Cupboard was already waiting in front of the church door for the early birds from the first volunteer shift. Wayne arrived just after 8am to open the door and let Kash, Roger and Gary unload the cartons with an abundance of exotic fruit: bananas, melons, limes, pineapples, and oranges.

Sevan came just in time to swap with Roger, and embarked on a task to sort oranges that had arrived in impressive quantities. He indentified the good, the bad, and the ugly citruses, and discarded the mouldy and the squashed ones.

Wayne and Gary tried to give out some of the oranges ahead of the afternoon distribution as there wasn't even enough space to display them. They offered fruit to the parents with children heading to the local school, yet, with not much success. Kash attempted only once to "sell" some surplus oranges, and found that the parents weren't very trusting to strangers - even the strangers emerging from the house of God. Ouch.

There was no better way to cope with such rejection than flattening cardboard boxes, carrying empty crates outside the church and energetic hoovering. Having conquered the slightly bad feeling with the power of good, Sevan and Kash finished the task and left the rest in the hands of the next shift of GoodGymers.