The Somer Valley Foodbank provides emergency food parcels, free, to those “in crisis” — i.e.- with nothing in the cupboard and no money to go shopping. Plenty of people are in that position: our role is to stop those people from starving. Helping clients to get further help to get them out of their crisis is also an important part of our work. We are also looking at other ways of helping people such as possibly setting up a fuel bank and by getting them access to advice about how to maximise their finances.
We are part of The Trussell Trust, which was inspired by a passage from Matthew’s Gospel — “I was hungry and you gave me something to eat”. The Trust provided us with a blueprint for setting up and running a food bank.
People cannot just turn up and get food. Clients must be referred by an agency such as social services, health visitors, the probation service, welfare support or schools who have seen that they are in need of emergency help. There is a limit to how many referrals you can get, such as five three-day food parcel per crisis, but this is only a guideline and not a rule.
The foodbank handles long life food and clients get what they are given from a standard checklist: for a single person it’s a box of cereal, 500g of rice or pasta, some chocolate and biscuits, long-life milk, teabags, juice and tins of soup, vegetables and so on. Each parcels provide a nutritionally balanced diet. In addition to the food parcel, clients also get toiletries and household cleaning materials, cat and dog food, if we have them in stock. There is also a ‘help yourself’ table of items that are slightly out of date or items that have been donated but are not recommended for the standard food parcel.
The Somer Valley Foodbank depends on donations from the local community and we have collection bins in the local supermarkets and many churches. Businesses and schools also donate great amounts at seasonal times such as Harvest and Christmas. The donations from the people in this community have been fantastic as shown by the results of the collection held in Tesco recently, when we collected 1,800kgs of food, which was 150 crates of food or 360 carrier bags of food! We are indeed very thankful and want to say a great big THANK YOU to all those who gave. We also want to give a big thank you to the local Tesco store for letting us hold the collection.
There is a growing demand in the area and thanks to the local support of this community, the Somer Valley Foodbank can continue to support people in crisis in this area. Thank you.