With the national Covid-19 emergency restrictions in place, April has been an exceptional month for Thame's Foodbank in many ways. Here are the headlines from Sharing Life:
- 31 new volunteers have joined our Foodbank and Community Larder team. Many of these people are currently furloughed from their regular employment or are working from home and have time available. We are very grateful for their help as many of our regular team are over 70 and are in voluntary self-isolation.
- We have had many further offers of help as well but we have put these people in a ‘reserve’ list for the time being as we now have enough to cover the jobs needed.
- During April our Foodbank delivered 56 parcels. These provided for 89 adults and 74 children.
- 64% of these were self-referrals. This is much higher than usual and we anticipated that this would happen as a number of drop-in support agencies such as Citizens Advice are only using phone contact at the moment.
- Community Larder: We weren’t able to open at Christchurch as planned but, in partnership with SOFEA Didcoto we have launched the Larder on a delivery model. After the first 5 weeks of operation we now have 60 signed up members which is a very encouraging start. Each member household receives a box of non-perishable food items donated by the national ‘Fareshare’ supermarket surplus charity and also a bag of surplus fresh fruit and vegetables.
- Our thanks to the Co-op special community fund that has made a grant to Sharing Life for the purchase of ’most needed’ items for the Foodbank store.
- Sharing Life has also received grants from South Oxfordshire District Council and is working very closely with Thame Town Council helping to set up support networks for mental health needs, prescription collections and other shopping arrangements for those who are self-isolating or housebound.
- We have expanded the number of days on which we are collecting surplus food items from Waitrose through ‘Fareshare’. We are also building a network of local residents and organisations that we can distribute these items to when they are not needed for the Foodbank.
Sharing Life are very grateful to be part of such a fantastic community effort in Thame and surrounding villages and our thoughts and prayers are also very much with all the NHS and other key workers who are showing such dedication to their work and in many cases putting themselves at risk on our behalf.
We have additional hygiene regulations and protective equipment in place for our volunteers using the store and we very much hope that everyone will continue to be healthy in the coming weeks and months.
Please download the Foodbank App on to your smartphone or tablet for regular updates on the most needed items for our Foodbank.
