This month we've given an additional £12k to food bank charities in the UK and US, on top of £1.8k donated to food banks earlier in the year. This is thanks to you.

Giving feels good.

We're really proud to announce that last week, Radical Tea Towel donated £10,552 to the Trussell Trust food bank charity in the UK.

This comes in addition to £1,000 donated to the Trussell Trust in April this year. 

We've also given another $1,800 (£1,400) to Feeding America, a US hunger relief organisation, also on top of an earlier donation this year that now means we've provided 28,000 meals to Americans in need.

Samantha Stapely, Chief Operating Officer at the Trussell Trust, wrote to us and said:

Where does the money come from?

We've been collecting most of these donations through sales of our cotton face masks, and it's part of our ongoing giveaway commitment which has seen us donate about £16,000 to good causes and campaigns in 2020 so far.

Initially, our idea with the face masks was to give one away for each one sold, but we couldn't get them made fast enough, and another problem with that was that many small organisations were unable to accept or distribute donations of health equipment!

Then we started giving away £2 for each mask sold, but after a while, our UK manufacturers had to raise their prices (as we improved the product), and we realised we'd be making a loss on the face masks, so we had to switch to £1 from then on.

Rest assured that we spent a lot of time getting the calculation right so that £2 was still collected for earlier face masks sold before July, and that we were consistent with our promises to you!

Why food banks?

We've actually donated to a number of different organisations over the years (you can read more on our Good Causes page). When it comes to larger donations, the advantage with food banks is that we know this money will mainly be spent on something real and helpful: food for the needy.

What we've found is that many smaller organisations and campaigns need more volunteers, time and networking help, rather than financial resources.

Thanks for your help

Of course, the saddest thing is that we live in a world where, even in the rich West, food banks are necessary.

We believe it's right to criticise the economic system we live in and expose its flaws.

But we also believe in more than talking: that we must take action where it can be effective, whether that's turning up to peaceful protests, or giving financial support to people trying to improve the situation.

Thanks for your support of Radical Tea Towel over the years. It's not only sustained a family business and about 15 jobs across our UK and US supply chains, but has meant that fewer people will go hungry this winter.