Churches Weekly Newsletter - No.130, 9 October 2022
Around here generous people are giving towards our local food banks (two examples being those who next Saturday will support the WI Coffee Morning at Austwick, and today will contribute to the offering at Clapham’s harvest social this weekend) and it’s valued greatly, and increasingly needed. As mentioned above, it's an awful feature of our current situation that food bank donations continue to drop just as more and more people are needing to use them. Some food banks are reporting that what they have to give out has halved in recent months whilst demand has doubled.
A further squeeze on provision is that supermarkets are striving to be more efficient and waste less, in order to keep prices for their customers low - which is in itself a good thing of course, but also means that they now have less excess to offer food charities. Food waste charity Fareshare has told the BBC it has seen a drop of around 200 tonnes in supermarket surplus donations every month; they are writing to major supermarkets, asking for an increase in contributions.
You may have seen the Six O'Clock News item this week which highlighted this challenge to the supermarkets, and featured an interview with Reverend Christine Threlfall, of St James Church in Broughton, Salford, whose Place of Welcome project offers free hot dinners as well as a £2.50 pantry for locals in need, "a real mix of people: pensioners, young families, working people and the unemployed," she says. "They all have one thing in common. Prices are skyrocketing but their income is the same.”
Demand for help at Broughton's Place of Welcome has doubled since the pandemic. Christine and her team of volunteers have seen queues round the block. She says Fareshare food is a lifeline for desperate residents, but it needs to be "the right food": ie, ready meals and simple suppers which don’t take much costly energy to prepare, or big stew ingredients which volunteers can cook to dish out at the church.
There’s good will all round in this scenario. Volunteers are as dedicated as ever. Supporters are doing the best they can. Supermarket spokespeople say they remain committed to supporting community projects as best they can. There’s also a sharpening of perspective which was well expressed by Christine Threlfall, who said, “Supermarkets and businesses and growers are doing their very best to support our food banks and food charities but it is not their responsibility to hold up the welfare state. The government needs to address the fact that people have not got the money to buy food.”
FareShare has a plan to help tackle the cost of living crisis using England’s surplus food. “By spending £25 million a year, the government could deliver an additional 42,500 tonnes of surplus food, the equivalent of 100 million meals, to the people worst hit by the cost of living crisis.: Fareshare are asking us to write to our MP to ask them to support their Cost of Living Crisis Appeal (please click link for more details).
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