Emergency: 07749 322 291
Email: help@exmouthfoodbank.org.uk
We are busy making preparations for Easter at the Food Bank and are already receiving donations of eggs for us to distribute. These will go out in our regular parcels in the week commencing 11th April, so if you are generous enough to donate these items, we’d appreciate receiving them by Friday 8th please.
Also, please note, as it is Good Friday on 15th April, we are opening instead on Thursday 14th.
The number of people needing food help has continued to increase and we have seen almost a 10% rise in demand from February to March. We provided help to 264 families and individuals, feeding 492 people during March. The increase was expected given all of the competing demands on people’s incomes; many are now struggling simply to make ends meet. We are here to help and can provide much needed food and supplies. We can also signpost individuals to local agencies such as Citizens Advice to provide ongoing guidance and support.
In March we provided some lovely Mother’s Day parcels to all of the Mum’s receiving food parcels that week.
The parcels contained some chocolates or sweets and some pampering items such as bubble bath, body lotion or other smellies. See the photo on the left which shows some of the parcels ready to go out.
We hope all of our Mums had a lovely relaxing day.
Now that volumes are increasing, we find ourselves in need of more of the basic Food Bank parcel items. We are very fortunate in that we receive so many kind donations from all areas of the community and of course we couldn’t do what we do without this level of ongoing support. Each month we list on our website the supplies that we are short of.
You can also view this list via a free app called Bank the Food which will enable you to see in real time what we need when you are out shopping. You can even set the app to ping you a reminder!
We checked recently, and our standard 1 person, 1 week parcel costs approximately £20 to provide. Most of the food we give out is donated and we also top it up with purchases from the monetary donations we receive to ensure that the food parcels are nutritious, balanced and will support someone for a week with their meals.
This month if you are thinking of donating food items, we are most in need of: instant coffee, tins of cold meat, fruit squash, packet instant potato, long life milk, pasta sauce, tinned vegetables & bags for life – Thank You 😊
We are looking for someone to be our lead for all things IT used for the running of the Food Bank. This will be on an ad-hoc basis and will require someone with up-to-date technical skills to support us with our iPhones, email accounts, access database, laptops and printer. If you are interested, please email: info@exmouthfoodbank.org.uk and a member of the team will contact you to discuss this further.
