What can we do to help our local community?

What’s going on in the world right now?

As the cost of living has rapidly increased recently, more and more families are looking to food banks for help. People are leaning towards skipping meals, just to pay for their heating and electricity bills. Some parents are not eating, just so their children can. It’s absurd what this world has come to.

An example of someone battling this in the media at the moment is the Elsie. When Susannah Reid was interviewing the Prime Minister, she brought up pensioner Elsie and how her cost of living has skyrocketed. She’s cut down to one meal a day and her weight is dropping drastically. She’ll go to the shops late in the evening, so she can pick up all the reduced items from the day. To keep warm she’ll go on multiple bus journey’s using her pensioner’s freedom pass, to save putting on the heating at home. Her gas and electricity bills have risen from £17 to £85 a month, a staggering amount, and she’s one of many that are going through this right now.

How is it affecting people locally?

Many families who considered themselves to be ‘comfortable’ before, have now had to resort to seeking help from food banks.

I spoke to mother of three, Katie Fox, about how her life has been affected. “I never thought I’d have to use a food bank, I never thought it would be me”.  She spoke about always growing up “financially stable” and that she never really had to worry about money. “Of course when you start to have kids money becomes a bigger issue, but food banks never even entered my head”. “As bad as it sounds there’s always a stigma attached to food banks, but it shouldn’t be bad to ask for help sometimes”. Sadly it is true about the stigma attached to food banks. However, I think that this is caused solely by the representation in the media. The media have created food banks to be a shameful place to be, which can be so damming for an individual.

Andrew Hirst from Southbourne Food Bank stated that “the community is our biggest and best support group, both financially and with food donations”. He mentions how much he appreciates the people of BCP, “We need BCP and I feel they need us”. It’s difficult at this time to donate to food banks, when a lot of people don’t have enough food for themselves. However, just do what you can. Everyone is striving the feed the people of BCP, and this is the main goal in our SDG group, Zero Hunger. The United Nations are striving to decrease and eventually put a stop to world hunger. Even though it’s not on track, people are still doing what they can.

What’s going on in a bigger scale?

Between April 2021 and March 2022, Trussell Trust food banks distributed over 2.1 million food parcels to people all over the UK. Just more of 830,000 of these parcels went to children. This amount compared to the amount 5 years ago (2016-17),  has increased by about 81%. The largest number of emergency parcels went to people in and around London.

On an even larger scale, 1 in 9 people are hungry or ‘undernourished’ around the world. But what are the requirements for hunger? Action Against Hunger defines the term to be when you consume less than 1,800 calories a day. The organisation also stated that 30 million more people were affected by hunger because of the COVID 19 pandemic.

 

An insight into Food For Hope with Kathy Moore

Kathy Moore is a NHS worker that volunteers at an organisation called Hope For Food. She runs all the social media elements for the group as well as contributing 15 hours of her time per week. Kathy spoke about how the organisation has two branches to it. They help many families and homeless people. They have their soup kitchen that they run twice a week, one of these days being inside St Stephen’s Hall, and the other day outside. There’s also a donation point, where people can bring items and those in need can pick them up. This at at West Howe industrial estate, and is pinpointed on the map below.

Kathy spoke passionately about the fact that they can offer unlimited help to families and individuals. “So because we’re a charity and not a food bank, there’s no restrictions on how long we help people”. However, she mentioned a big downfall of not being a registered food bank is that they don’t receive any government funding. They’re solely funded through donations and their own pockets, at the end of the day. Sometimes, when they’re low on food at the donation point, they’ll have to go on large food shops. She recalls a recent shop at ALDI adding up to around £950. Food For Hope do organise a lot of fundraisers, but sometimes it’s just not enough.

However, they’re not left entirely on their own. Local supermarkets such as Waitrose and Co Op to name a few, will donate bags and bags of fresh and frozen food. “We can go to Waitrose in Winton on a Thursday evening, and they will have crates of food, frozen and fresh for us to take away”. Supermarket’s are aiming to cut back on the amount of waste they cause. Therefore, food that is coming to the end of its shelf life is donated to multiple different charities and food banks.

As with most charities and food banks right now, their services are required now more than ever. Kathy said there has been an obvious increase since people’s cost of living had gone up. “Over the last few weeks, we’ve probably had three new referrals every week”. They’re packaging and giving out over 150 food parcels per week.

Lastly, here’s two things Kathy strongly promotes:

If you can be anything in this world, be kind

If you don’t have to go to a food bank, thank your lucky stars

There’s a few organisations listed below on the map, if you’re seeking help.