We know that foodbanks are in need more than ever in these unprecedented times, which is why we will be donating £5 million to our partners FareShare and the Trussell Trust to help the country’s most vulnerable people through COVID-19.
The extensive package of measures will provide over 4 million meals to families in food poverty impacted by Coronavirus as well as giving more than 3,000 charities the ability to access free food over the next 3 months as they fight to tackle the impacts of Coronavirus in their communities. The donation will help the two food distribution charities as they experience a huge increase in demand over the coming months, as more vulnerable people turn to food banks for help through COVID-19.
The funding will also continue the work of the Fight Hunger Create Change partnership between Asda and the two charities by helping tackle the root causes of poverty through supporting 800,000 people over the next year with debt and financial advice.
Foodbanks in Furness are feeding double the amount of people amid the coronavirus crisis.
DEMAND : Furness foodbanks users have doubled in the past week.
23 Mar 20 : What does tonight’s announcement mean for food banks ?
Our main priority is ensuring the safety of everyone who comes to a food bank – whether it’s someone needing help, someone volunteering their time, or someone making a donation.
Following the Prime Minister’s announcement, food banks face a difficult decision about whether they are able to stay open. Each food bank in our network is a local charity, run by a community for their local community, and each will be affected differently – so we’ll be working with each of them to look at what is safe for everyone involved.
Until we are confident that adequate government protection against poverty is in place, food banks provide an essential community service to people unable to afford food.
The latest government advice explains food banks can legally continue operating and buildings that host food banks can continue to open for those sessions, provided we follow social distancing rules, because your work qualifies you as key workers ‘caring for the vulnerable’.
At food banks, social distancing rules mean ensuring volunteers who are classed as ‘at risk’ because they are over 70 or have a health condition stay at home. It means making sure there are hand-washing facilities in any centre people are in, and everyone is asked to wash their hands regularly. It also means making big changes to the way centres work, to limit contact between people. This will look different in different centres, but it might mean:
Instead of being invited into a centre, people referred are immediately given a pre-packed food bank parcel in a practical, dignified and compassionate manner.
Ensuring that wherever people are waiting, there is a large enough space for people to wait at least two metres apart.
A reduced number of food bank sessions per week.
Coordination with local agencies to give them pre-packed food bank parcels, or to deliver to people those agencies work with.
The above is where we stand legally following the PM’s announcement but we will be working with each of the food banks in our network about what’s best for their local community.
The Trussell Trust will remain open and ready to support food banks in whatever difficult decision they make. If a food bank feels it can continue to run, in line with the government guidance and with the support of their volunteers and local community, we will do everything we can to support the food bank.
If a food bank feels it is unable to open, we will look at how we can get work to get emergency food to people in that area who don’t have enough money for food, in a safe, alternative way.
Help The Hungry : Five ways to help your local food bank you might not have thought of.
Reaching out, at every level, is fundamental to what food banks do, writes Vincent Wood.
Doubts over take-up of UK government emergency food parcels.
Food banks and charities also warn that elderly and vulnerable people are already going hungry.
However, official guidance sent to local authorities seen by the Guardian reveals that the government anticipates that no more than 400,000 people self-isolating in their homes would sign up for free food parcels over the next few weeks, with the rest expected to turn it down because they have support from family and friends.
Separately, food banks have warned that potentially hundreds of thousands of older and vulnerable people who do not qualify for help through the emergency delivery scheme, but who are self-isolating at home, are now reliant on over-stretched food charities’ supplies to access food safely.
My food bank used to offer human contact, but coronavirus has ended that.
As we move to home deliveries only, the desperate people to whom we usually offer tea and a chat will be further out of sight.
It often feels as though food banks, much like homeless hostels, act to shield the public from the most visible cruelty of austerity.
I wish we didn’t exist – and let us not forget that food banks have not always existed, and certainly never in these numbers.
But there is something to be said for the public opening their eyes to the fact that every week, in their communities, people stand, often with their kids in tow, queuing for food parcels in one of the richest countries in the world.
Our food bank could run out of stock before the coronavirus lockdown ends.
Demand is soaring, but individual donations are falling. The co-founder of one food bank shares her diary of its journey during the Covid-19 crisis.
Scottish fishermen turn to food banks as Covid-19 devastates industry.
Crisis destroys foreign sales of shellfish and supermarkets close fish counters causing slump during traditional Easter boom period.
Worst-hit are lobster and crab fishermen in Scotland’s south-east and west coasts, according to the Fishermen’s Mission, a Christian welfare charity. Staff at the charity have also identified “pockets of need” in Shetland and as far south as Newlyn in Cornwall. This comes just before the Easter holiday, traditionally a period of increased demand.
Claire McIntosh, the Mission’s area official for south-east Scotland, has been working 12-hour days fielding calls from crews whose skippers have had to tie up their boats.
“I’ve been liaising with food banks since January,” said McIntosh, whose patch covers the 80 miles of coastline from Seahouses in Northumberland to Port Seton in East Lothian. “This is on the back of poor weather and poor catches during winter. They are very self-sufficient folk, very resilient, resourceful and hard-working. Their last resort is to come to us. But I’ve handed out £17,500 in the last few weeks, compared to £12,000 for the whole of the last year.”