Food bank given donation boost by housing provider
A Staffordshire housing provider has made a generous donation to help a city food bank.
Barratt Homes has made a donation of £500 to Lichfield Foodbank to provide help with its running costs and consumables.
Lichfield Foodbank, which is part of the Trussell Trust, provides support for local people and families who may be experiencing crisis or financial difficulties.
Barratt Homes’ donation has been dedicated to providing families and children with emergency food parcels, in addition to helping with the logistics and other administrative tasks of the food bank operatives behind the scenes.
Verity Ashley, chair at Lichfield Foodbank, said: “We are seeing more and more people plunged deeper into poverty and coming through our doors.
"In the last 12 months, we provided 11,588 emergency food parcels to local people who couldn’t afford the essentials.
“We are providing food parcels for approximately 1,000 people a month, with demand for our services ever increasing on average of more than 30 per cent per month higher than last year.
"The donations, however, remain on par with last year.
“Therefore, it’s crucial that we receive support from local businesses and community groups to help the people in food poverty so that Lichfield Foodbank can continue to support families and individuals suffering from wealth inequality.”
The Trussell Trust revealed that, during the period from April 2022 to March 2023, the network distributed a record high number of food parcels totalling nearly 3,000,000 for the year.
This equates to a food parcel being handed out once every eight seconds, and 760,000 people used the service for the first time.
Lichfield Foodbank relies on the support of the local community for donations, volunteering and fundraising and almost all of the food donated to the charity has come from members of the community through churches, schools, supermarkets and other businesses.
The food bank provides three days’ worth of nutritionally balanced emergency food to local people.
Adrian Evans, managing director at Barratt Homes West Midlands, said: “Lichfield Foodbank is carrying out a vital service for the local community, and we are delighted to have been able to assist in its mission to provide people with essential support.
“As a leading housebuilder, we do our best to help organisations in the areas close to our developments, and it’s of the utmost importance that we work closely with local people to see how we can best help them.”
For more information on the foodbank, go to lichfield.foodbank.org.uk
