A Rotary club’s monthly donation of £250 has enabled a food bank to provide local people with fresh fruit and veg alongside their non-perishable parcel.
Speaker Karen Williams, project lead of foodbank PLUS based at the Barnabas Centre, told members of Shrewsbury Severn Rotary Club that their regular donation had been a ‘real boost’ for individual clients. Without such support for healthy, more sustainable food, the outcome would have been only non-perishable goods.
“Healthy food is much more sustainable,” said Karen who told members that so far this week alone, in just two days, 110 people had been fed. There would be 50-60 people fed the following day and around 120 people the day after that.
She told Rotarians that a lot of people did not want their employers or peers to know they were using the food bank. “We want to give people a sense of dignity – a lot of people end up at the food bank never thinking they would – but they do. The sense of shame can be difficult for people. How did I get here? They never anticipated the need to use a food bank.”
Karen openly revealed that the Barnabas – a charity – also dealt with people who were homeless and were sleeping on people’s sofas. But they were in work. A number of nurses, as well as teachers, were using the food bank and they were now starting to take referrals from employers. “We are assisting people in a crisis and most people use us upto eight times a year. We are also supporting people back into paid work.”
She added that donations to the Barnabas were going down, but food prices were going up. “We work on donations, such as the one we receive from Shrewsbury Severn Rotary Club. We have to work on donations as well as honour and justify every single penny,” she added.
