Frequently Asked Questions

We know how important it is for many of you to receive food support over the festive period. Our campaign this year is called 'A Matched Christmas Dinner' (previously called 'Matched dinners') where one family buys the food for you to cook a Christmas Day dinner and delivers it directly to your home.

We are offering 6 menus to choose from, to suit all dietary requirements. You can pick the one that suits the majority of your family.

View the Menu

Our giving pages will open again on 1st November, and will run through until early December.

Your dinner will be given to a local family who needs support with food at Christmas. Our families may include those with children but we also give to single people and couples, using “family” in ths broadest sense. Families can apply directly to us or they may have been referred in from other charities or support organisation. Each family who applies to us is checked to make sure they meet our criteria.

Feeding Families was built on the idea of one family giving to another. On signing up you will be asked to select a family near where you live or work (selecting a postcode) and you can deliver your dinner directly to them at a time that is convenient for you both a few days before Christmas. Alternatively, you can donate any food items to a local collection point which we will then pack and distribute for you.

Where families are matched together we can include fresh food, which we are not able to do from our packing centres. We are therefore always on the lookout for more donors who will deliver a dinner themselves.

We supply a list of the items we would like you to include. Please follow this list so that everyone gets roughly the same. If you don’t think you can supply a whole dinner you can drop off a few items at one of our collection points which we can use on our packing days. If you can supply more than one dinner you can register to be matched to more than one family. Please do not include money, tobacco or alcohol.

We aim to provide “Christmas in a box” – everything to make a Christmas dinner, so if you are delivering your own dinner you will be able to do this. Unfortunately, we can't accept fresh food at any of our drop off points as we do not have refrigeration and there will be a time delay before we can distribute the donations.

We will have local collection points set up so you can drop off any food items to any of these. Information on collection points will be published by the start of December. If you don't want to deliver a dinner yourself this is an ideal way that you can still contribute. You can also donate a gift of money which we can use to buy food and will distribute this ourselves. Please don’t apply to be matched to a family if you can’t deliver it yourself or arrange for someone to do it for you.

Things happen in life – we understand. However by being part of Feeding Families you are making a pledge to look after a particular family. Once you are matched, that family is relying on your support and if you don’t deliver, they may not receive anything. We ask you therefore to please have a back-up plan from the start in case you are sick or another emergency arises.

• Buy some of the contents well in advance so you have at least part of your dinner prepared.
• Try to organise a friend who can step in to help to complete and deliver your dinner for you.
• If you are not able to deliver at all, please contact christmas@feedingfamilies.org.uk as soon as possible so we can attempt to solve the problem.
• Donate the cost of the dinner so we can cover the cost of feeding your matched family.

We rely on your generosity of our donors and we may not have the funds available or the delivery resources at the last minute to cover for people pulling out so we ask you to do all you can to keep your commitment. We are also volunteers with jobs and so there is only a limited amount of last minute things we can do.

For the benefit of yourself and your matched family, PLEASE DO NOT COMMIT TO PROVIDING A DINNER TO A FAMILY UNLESS YOU HAVE THE FUNDS AVAILABLE TO FULFILL YOUR PLEDGE

We only inform the recipient of your first name. We will never tell them your surname or address. Obviously, when you make contact with them, they will have your telephone number, or email address.