Latest news with #emergencyfood
BBC News
26-05-2025
- General
- BBC News
Oswestry food bank seeing 'steady increase' in demand
A food bank in Oswestry has said it is spending more than £70,000 a year on buying comes as figures from the Trussell Trust show that nearly 245,000 emergency food parcels were given to families across the West Midlands in the past and Borders Foodbank provides groceries and hygiene products - as well as practical advice and Liz Jermy said she was seeing a "steady increase in families needing to use our food bank." Anti-poverty charity the Trussell Trust, which runs a nationwide network of food banks, has found a 44% increase over the past year in the number of food parcels it's giving the areas of Shropshire run by Shropshire Council, 9,753 parcels were given to families from three Trussell Trust food banks between April 2024 and March April 2017 and March 2018, just 4,737 were handed charity does not have any food banks in the region run by Telford and Wrekin Council. Ms Jermy said in 2024, the food bank spent £72,000 on food."That's just for Oswestry and the surrounding villages," she said she's seen a "big rise" in people needing to use the food bank since the Covid-19 pandemic."It's people who are in work, but just not able to make ends meet." The trust believes it's important to have people working and volunteering at food banks who know what it's like to need their years ago, Malcolm was homeless due to illness causing him to give up working and a marriage ended up being placed in a Travelodge, whilst looking after his ill said he was "very worried" about going to a food bank for the first time, adding that he was "very emotional because I couldn't get food to feed my son." "I walked in to find smiling faces [...] [and] they sent me off with two big bags of food," he said. Once he was back on his feet, Malcolm decided he "wanted to give back."He is now a volunteer and trustee at Oswestry and Borders Food Bank - his role involves welcoming people into the building."If there's a queue I go and talk to them - because I remember how I felt the first time I walked in." Ben, who is employed by the Trussell Trust, has his own experiences of food poverty, and believes rising prices are leaving more families in need of the charity's help."As someone who's lived on Universal Credit, I know it's not enough to afford all of the essentials," he said. "You might be able to afford three out of the five essentials, but you need to find the other two somewhere - that's where food banks plug in the gap." Volunteer and trustee Alison said she is not surprised that the number of families receiving food parcels is rising."Everybody is tightening their belts, and there is an increasing amount of people for whom tightening their belt just isn't enough," she said. When Alison's husband died suddenly, she remembered the "sick feeling" when she realised there was no life insurance to help support the family."These things come out of the blue, and you have no idea [what to do]." Alison added that food banks offer a lot more than just groceries."Financial advice, mental health support, bereavement support - all that kind of things happening alongside the tins of beans." Follow BBC Shropshire on BBC Sounds, Facebook, X and Instagram.
BBC News
23-05-2025
- General
- BBC News
Norwich food bank forced to turn people away due to funding gap
A community foodbank said it has had to turn people away due to high demand and funding struggles. The Silver Road Community Centre in Norwich, Norfolk, started its food bank and community fridge in 2020, in response to the Covid pandemic. The food bank is run by a team of volunteers and relies on grants and donations to finance the service. Julie Brociek-Coulton, a Labour councillor on Norfolk County Council and a volunteer manager at the food bank, said: "We used to get quite a lot of grants, but with the cost of living and everything, it's just been so cut back." Over the last five years, Brociek-Coulton said she has seen an increase in the number of people needing the help of the food bank. The Trussell Trust, a food bank charity, said it has seen a 51% increase over the last five years in the number of emergency food parcels it has provided to people in the year 332,540 emergency food parcels were handed out by the trust across the East of England, compared with 190,144 in 2019. Brociek-Coulton said that the food bank and community fridge serve about 100 people every week. "That is a lot of people who are coming in, and we're an essential part of the community," she said. "Everyone I talk to about food banks, they mention Universal Credit."But it's not like that anymore. All sorts of people are coming in here now," she added. The Silver Road food bank is funded by donations from the community and grants that the team apply for. "Recently we put in for a grant that would help us for six or seven months, and we didn't get it," Brociek-Coulton said. "That was one of the main things we needed to survive.""We used to get quite a lot of grants, but with the cost of living and everything, it's just been so cut back."Without this grant, Brociek-Coulton estimated the organisation would be able to help 50 fewer people every month. She added: "It's really devastating to those people, but what can we do?" Follow Norfolk news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X.
BBC News
15-05-2025
- Business
- BBC News
Wokingham Food Bank sees donations from supermarkets drop
A food bank in Berkshire has said it has seen donations from supermarkets fall by 15%.Wokingham Food Bank has given out 4,500 emergency food parcels in the past year and has reported a 5% increase in people using the Annette Medhurst said "people see us as part of the high street and quite possibly incorrectly think that we have government funding, or receive financial support from the local council".The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) described the "mass dependence" on food banks as unacceptable and said it was working to "fix the system and make work pay" so people can become more financially secure. Ms Medhurst said about 75% of donations come from supermarkets, where people place items they have bought in collection cages. But with many facing rising costs, it has impacted how much food can be spared, she added."We have clients coming in to the food bank telling us that normally they donate to the food bank and they are in disbelief that they now need to use our services," Ms Medhurst told the BBC."We are now in a position that we need to purchase items to make sure to plug any gaps." Adam Lee uses food banks in Reading and relies on Universal Credit after losing his job last 51-year-old moved to Berkshire from Australia more than 10 years ago and said "there's too much month at the end of the money"."I've seen a significant drop in donations but also a drop in healthier foods so a lot of the foods that seem to be donated are croissants and muffins," he recalled when he was made redundant how the DWP told him the first thing to do was register at a food bank. "The government has shifted the responsibility for providing people who need social care, they have deliberately moved it to the generosity of the British people and [food banks]," Mr Lee DWP said it has increased the National Living Wage, uprated benefits and introduced a new Fair Repayment Rate on Universal Credit to bring a £420 boost to over one million households. You can follow BBC Berkshire on Facebook, X, or Instagram.
