Epsom foodbank charity aims to raise £11,300 in Christmas appeal
Fourteen years after local churches and community groups opened the first Epsom & Ewell Foodbank centres, the Surrey charity that grew out of their work is asking residents to help raise £11,300 for its foodbanks and community pantries this Christmas. Good Company
Good Company (Surrey) is taking part in the Big Give Christmas Challenge for the first time. Its Living with Hope appeal aims to raise £5,650 in public donations between noon on Tuesday 1 December and noon on Tuesday 8 December. Pledges from existing supporters and the Reed Foundation will match those donations, taking the total to £11,300 if the target is reached. Epsom and Ewell Foodbank
From two local foodbank centres
Good Company traces its roots to a public meeting in July 2012, when more than 70 people turned up to discuss whether Epsom and Ewell needed a foodbank. Some doubted there was enough need in the borough to justify one. By October, two centres had opened, one in Epsom and one in Ewell, with support from Generation Church. Leatherhead and Tadworth followed in 2013, and Banstead in 2014. In April 2022, the foodbank became part of the new charity, Good Company (Surrey), while keeping its original name. Good Company
The charity still provides emergency food, alongside one-to-one support, counselling and help with energy costs. It runs Epsom Pantry, a member-led community food shop, and Banstead Pantry. Its wider work includes the Epsom & Ewell Refugee Network and the East Surrey Poverty Truth Commission, launched in 2019 to give people with first-hand experience of poverty a say in how local organisations respond to it. Good Company says 535 households came to one of its foodbank centres for the first time in 2025. Good Company
What the Christmas appeal will support
The appeal will help fund the charity’s foodbanks and pantries. In its Christmas newsletter, Good Company shared the experience of a pantry member who said spending less on basic essentials had made it easier to pay off other debts. Another person, who had received one-to-one support, said: “It changed my life really. I got a sense of dignity back. It changed everything.”
The artwork for the appeal was drawn by Alison, a community commissioner from the charity’s most recent Poverty Truth Commission, and is available as an electronic Christmas card. Good Company is encouraging residents to hold coffee mornings, schools to organise cake sales and businesses to consider donating a share of a day’s takings. Readers can sign up for a reminder on the charity’s Big Give Christmas Challenge page. Epsom and Ewell Foodbank
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