Feed a Family: Generous donation will help food bank stock up on goods
Members of the Ironbridge and and Severn Gorge Lions have been more than doing their bit to help out their counterparts in Telford Crisis Support who openly admit they have been struggling with donations and supplies at the food bank they run.
As part of the Shropshire Star's Feed a Family Campaign, we are highlighting the work of food banks across the county and told on Monday how the Telford Crisis Support unit at Halesfield recently had only one tin of soup on their shelves and had to dip into their own funds to buy food to stock them.
But they were given a helping hand when given a cheque for £1,000 by The Lions, who have recently been carrying out food drives and running a 'Silver Across the Bridge' event where people are encouraged to tape coins to the Iron Bridge - to raise funds for the food banks.
Feed a Family:
As well as the food bank, members of Telford Crisis Support provide support for food, baby/toddler needs, clothing, home energy, and other welfare requirements.
Operations manager Simon Lellow said: "We are always very grateful for donations which help us continue the work we do.
"Whilst we are well supported as a charity, so can keep going when food stocks are low, we are sometimes in need of a helping hand like everyone else and so appreciate the effort of all at The Lions through the food drives and the popular Silver Across the Bridge campaign."
He spoke as a new report said food banks across Britain were warning of a 'completely unsustainable' surge in demand that will prevent them from feeding the hungriest families this winter
In the survey by the Independent Food Aid Network UK (Ifan UK), nearly 90 per-cent of the organisations representing 169 food banks said demand had risen since April, and 87 per-cent said they had been hit with supply issues.
One in five had already reduced the size of food parcels and more than half of the charities had already had to dip into their limited cash reserves to bulk out food parcels.
Ifan UK, which supports more than 550 food banks across the country, has urged the government to introduce “urgent, cash-first interventions” to ensure people can afford to put food on the table and heat their homes this winter.
Figures published on Wednesday show shop prices rose by a record 5.1 per cent in August as the war in Ukraine raised costs for farmers, and there was a 10.5 per cent rise in fresh food prices according to new data from the British Retail Consortium and market research firm NielsenIQ, the highest rate since September 2008.
Simon spoke to the Shropshire Star at the beginning of the Feed a Family Campaign and said the cost of living crisis was a “clear and present danger” to many people.
He said: “The effects are already deepening the existing issues surrounding poverty and the need for food banks and other charitable welfare support services.
“With the most recent energy price increases, rate of inflation and lack of countermeasures, the outlook for the final quarter of the year is bleak and disturbing.
"It is only by people coming together and supporting each other, as we try to do, plus nationally the government helping to manage the situation that we will get through it."
