Bishop’s Stortford’s food bank is ramping up its operations to ensure the town’s most vulnerable residents get fresh produce as part of their parcels.
The charity’s chairman Bill MacDonald said: “We broke records in the lead up to Christmas, providing food and other essentials to 362 people in December.Just to give you an idea – that’s more than the whole six months leading up to Christmas in 2019!Things have settled down a bit over the last few weeks, thank goodness, but we are still feeding around 70 people most weeks.”
Despite the demand, the team working from the Methodist Church in South Street are ready, willing and able to help more people, “particularly those who are possibly being affected by food poverty for the first time due to the current economic situation”.
Mr MacDonald paid tribute to the army of supporters who have made this provision – and planned upgrades – possible during the pandemic.
“We are only able to do this because of the incredible support we receive from the community. Over Christmas our ‘reverse Advent calendar’ initiative was so successful that we almost ran out of space to store all the food items donated to us, and so many people wanted to volunteer for us we couldn’t process their applications fast enough.
” Similarly, businesses, organisations and individuals have continued to be so generous – the money just keeps flowing in. We have also had practical help from the likes of ITVet, who gave us a new laptop, Global Go’s Stansted office – they moved a huge load of stuff around for us – and Michelle [Brace], from the Wheatsheaf, who has offered our families free Sunday lunches.
“The healthy financial position we are now in has allowed us to crack on with our plans to refurbish the food bank to allow our operation to be a lot slicker, improve our manual handling operations and improve the experience for our clients when we eventually meet them face to face post-Covid.
“It’s also allowing us to improve the range and quality of food we provide for people, something we have wanted to do for a while. We are now able to offer people fresh fruit and vegetables, bread, cheese and other extras as well as essential items like toiletries and cleaning materials.We are also trialling meat vouchers to be redeemed in a local butcher and are hoping to partner Food4Heroes in providing nutritious frozen meals to people.We have also been able to contribute financially to the cost of hot meals provided to homeless people in the town via Operation CommUNITY.”
He urged those who want to help the food bank to continue donating groceries via trolleys in the town’s main supermarkets.
Staples in demand include:
- Cereal
- Soup
- Pasta
- Rice
- Tinned tomatoes/ pasta sauce
- Lentils, beans and pulses
- Tinned meat
- Tinned vegetables
- Tea/coffee
- Tinned fruit
- Biscuits
- UHT milk
- Fruit juice
The food bank also needs toiletries including deodorant, toilet paper, shower gel, shaving gel, shampoo, soap, toothbrushes, toothpaste and hand wipes; sanitary towels and tampons; baby food, wipes and nappies; laundry detergents and washing up liquid.
For more details see www.bishopsstortfordfoodbank.com
Credit: Source link
