Supermarket and volunteers bring festive fun to Rye residents

Volunteers and a supermarket helped bring a bit of cheer for those in need at Christmas.
The Christmas Day event Rye Community Shop hosted SUS-180801-105550001The Christmas Day event Rye Community Shop hosted SUS-180801-105550001
The Christmas Day event Rye Community Shop hosted SUS-180801-105550001

At the beginning of last month, Aldi announced it was to give away all its perishable goods that would otherwise be thrown away over the Christmas holidays.

With the help of Rye Community Transport’s bus, volunteers from Rye Community Shop collected more than £1,000 worth of food from the Aldi store in Hastings on Christmas Eve.

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This was then distributed to the Hastings Snowflake night shelter, the Rye Day Centre who now have enough frozen meat/fish for the whole of January, the attendees at the community shop’s Christmas Day lunch, many of whom live in sheltered housing, and their neighbours, a Syrian refugee family and many others in need.

Kate Sims, trustee from Rye Community Shop, said: “It was an amazing and humbling experience being able to be, in effect, a secret Santa on Christmas evening distributing all the bread, cakes, fruit and vegetables that were left. Not a single item was wasted nor thrown away.

“This was the second year that Rye Community Shop has hosted a Christmas Day event, there for those members of the community who would otherwise be on their own for Christmas. The day started with a glass of sherry and was followed with prawn cocktail or soup, then the full works with turkey with all the trimmings then Christmas pudding with cream and custard. A more challenging quiz was set this year based upon carols which many enjoyed singing along to.

“Our thanks must go to Aldi, Hastings, to the manager and staff who helped to put together all the food, to Rye Community Transport for use of the bus, to St Mary’s Centre for use of their facilities, to Beckley Primary School for the mini Christmas cakes and to all those who helped behind the scenes and on the day itself.”