How supporting our local communities can help to tackle child poverty

As the first month of the new year draws to a close, we’d like to wish everyone a Happy New Year, and hope that you are all keeping warm after a very cold and frosty few weeks.

For some, the month of January brings hope and a fresh perspective for the year with new years resolutions, however for others, it can be one of the most challenging months after the expense of Christmas. With an increase in fuel costs as the weather turns cold, it leaves many with the choice of either turning on the heating or buying food.

The ability to buy food is not just affecting those that are unemployed or have no access to public funds, but according to a recent survey from the Trade Union Congress (TUC), they’ve found that more than one in six UK adults working full time or part time have had to skip meals to make ends meet.

24% of those surveyed said they had made large or significant cut backs in food spending over the past year. And 31% of working adults said they never or only occasionally put the heating on.

With food prices reported to be rising by 4% this year, the choice of heating or food will continue to be ever present for some.

Supporting our Communities

Working with community focused partner projects is a crucial part of our mission, as it allows us to support those in need that we may not have been able to reach directly. Over the festive period, we were fortunate to support 23 partner projects with a financial donation, helping them to purchase food items for Christmas meals, buffets and hampers, working together to support over 1500 local people and families in need.

“I am very grateful for the hamper of toiletries and food. I will save this for Christmas day and have something to look forward to.”

One of these projects was Just Straight Talk based in Coseley, a Community Interest Company supporting people across The Black Country who are disadvantaged, by providing the practical help, support, and motivation they need to address and overcome barriers, turn their lives around, and achieve life goals.

The grant they received was spent on food essentials used to provide a full Christmas dinner on Christmas day to families and people living alone. The remainder was then spent on hampers given to people in crisis who contacted the charity during the festive period.

“This grant greatly impacted the people we support and took away the stress from people who would have worried about how they would have funded a Christmas meal or treats when usual services would have been closed over Christmas.” Kate Beale, Just Straight Talk

This project and its success was only possible due to the generosity of our donors, supporters, and grants we receive. Thank You ?? To find out more about this project, read the latest news post on our website.

Tackling Child Poverty

Earlier this month, well-known chef Tom Kerridge was among campaigners calling on the Government to do more to tackle food insecurity as part of the forthcoming child poverty strategy review.

The healthy start scheme currently applies across England, Wales and Northern Ireland to someone who is more than 10 weeks pregnant, or has a child under the age of four and is claiming certain benefits. The scheme enables them to buy healthy foods like milk or fruit and get free vitamins.

Campaigners are calling for the scheme to be expanded to include all families on Universal Credit and extend the age-eligibility to include children under five; boost the value of the allowance under the scheme in line with inflation; and bring in auto-enrolment so that it is “opt-out” rather than the current “opt-in” system, which campaigners said can be a barrier for families in applying.

“Access to free fresh food can play a role in helping to reduce some of the health inequalities faced by vulnerable people accessing our foodbanks and local community projects.” Keeley Jones, Deputy CEO/Operations Manager, BCFB

We know that through food insecurity, people are often forced to eat low quality food or not enough food, leading to malnutrition, which doesn’t just affect people’s physical health, but also their life-chances, self-confidence and mental well-being.

As part of a new project for 2025, we offered our partner projects and foodbanks the opportunity to apply for a grant to fund the purchase of fresh food items to be given out alongside food parcels, or used as part of a food related project, for example, projects that support vulnerable people to grow their own food.

The feedback from these grants so far has been amazing, supporting cookery projects with youth groups, cooking fresh meals for young people experiencing financial hardship, and supporting gardening programmes for young people and family groups to grow their own fruit and vegetables.

This project is still in its early days, but we hope it will have lasting effects to those in need.

Thank You Corporate Volunteers

As the last of the Christmas donations were processed this month, we are truly thankful to all of the corporate volunteers who not only chose to support our charity, but braved the cold in our central warehouse to support our amazing volunteers and warehouse manager with dating and sorting the donations.

With the help of over 200 corporate volunteers, we have processed over 50 tonnes of donations during the Harvest and Christmas periods! Thank you??

To give you an idea of what 50 tonnes of donations looks like, it’s equivalent to giving EVERY child in an averaged sized primary school, a tin of soup EVERY day of the year, and still having some left over ??

And yet this volume of donations will only fulfil the demand at our foodbanks for just two months!

This Months Shortages

We exist because of the generosity of our donors and supporters. If you are unsure on what items we need, we encourage you to sign up to our weekly shortages shopping list.

You will receive an email on the day that you choose, that lists our shortages for that week – it’s that simple!

If you haven’t already signed up, then please do and encourage your friends and family to do the same by completing the form on our website.

https://bit.ly/49YE3Zo

Foodbank Anniversaries

This month we celebrated a fifteen year anniversary for one of our foodbanks:

Bridging The Gap, Willenhall

Bridging The Gap provide a valuable foodbank session on a Thursday afternoon in our Walsall borough, supporting their local community. ?

And they are more than just a foodbank, offering benefit advice, a warm space, and counselling sessions as well as running a charity shop, and the business next door.

A huge well done for all that you do.

Next Month …

We hope to have our Impact Report 2024 to share with you once the final figures have been collated and analysed.

2024 looks set to have been another busy year at Black Country Foodbank, and our Impact Report is hoped to highlight the ever continuing food poverty challenges in the Black Country, and how we supported those in need in our local communities.