Posts in '2020'

Today Tesco has confirmed that over the next 12 weeks it will be providing a top up food donation of £15 million of food (ambient and fresh) to FareShare and the Trussell Trust, as part of a wider £25 million package of support they have set up for local communities during the current Covid-19 outbreak. They are also donating £1 million between the two organisations. (more…)

• Liam Payne has joined forces with national charity the Trussell Trust to support food banks in the Midlands and other key cities as they expect to see an increased need as a result of the coronavirus outbreak.
• This support will help over 100 food bank centres in Birmingham, Stoke-on-Trent, Coventry, Sheffield, Nottingham and Bristol continue to provide their essential community service for people in crisis.
• It’s expected that these food banks will provide over 360,000 meals to people in crisis over the next three months, as the pandemic unfolds
• Liam Payne’s donation is the beginning of a long term relationship with the Trussell Trust which will see him use his platform to continue to reach new audiences and raise awareness.

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Our main priority is ensuring the safety of everyone who comes to a food bank – whether it’s someone needing help, someone volunteering their time, or someone making a donation. Following the Prime Minister’s announcement, food banks face a difficult decision about whether they are able to stay open. Each food bank in our network is a local charity, run by a community for their local community, and each will be affected differently – so we’ll be working with each of them to look at what is safe for everyone involved.

Until we are confident that adequate government protection against poverty is in place, food banks provide an essential community service to people unable to afford food. (more…)

Asda donates £5 million to food banks and community charities as well as extending accessible hours for NHS workers and offering additional support to colleagues.  

Asda has announced it will be donating £5 million to its partners FareShare and the Trussell Trust to help the country’s most vulnerable people through COVID-19.

The extensive package of measures will provide over 4 million meals to families in poverty impacted by Coronavirus as well as giving more than 3000 charities the ability to access free food over the next three months as they fight to tackle the impacts of Coronavirus in their communities. (more…)

The Chancellor announced a number of changes to our benefits system in today’s Budget. The full details of these are available here.

The Trussell Trust was encouraged to see the changes focused on protecting people’s incomes – such as the £500m hardship fund for local authorities.

It is also encouraging to see the changes in deductions to Universal Credit, which mean the amounts needing to be paid back will be reduced to 25% of a claimant’s standard allowance, and repayment of advances will take place over 24 months instead of just 12. We would like to see these measures brought forward from their planned start date, October 2021. (more…)

We’re being asked lots of questions about the possible impact of coronavirus on people needing food banks, and the support food banks will be able to provide.

This is an unprecedented challenge, and we don’t yet know how things will unfold. We’re working with our network on how best to support people, and wherever possible, food banks will continue to provide the lifeline of emergency food. (more…)

As new figures reveal the level of generosity from the public to food banks in the run up to last Christmas, the Trussell Trust is calling on the government to end the five week wait for Universal Credit.

New figures released today show 3,072 tonnes of food were donated to food banks in the Trussell Trust’s network in December 2019, as donations from the public kept pace with the increased need for emergency food seen last year. (more…)

A key part of the Fight Hunger Create Change partnership between Asda, the Trussell Trust and FareShare is a grants programme for food banks in our network, providing crucial additional resources to increase the breadth of services they can offer people to help prevent someone needing a food bank again in the future.

This month we are collectively marking our two-year anniversary of the partnership and sharing stories of the difference it has made to people’s lives. A year on from receiving their grant funding, Colchester Foodbank has been able to achieve everything it had planned over three years. Michael Beckett, who is the chief officer at the food bank, explains what has been made possible… (more…)

A blog post by
Samantha Stapley
Chief Operations Officer

It is unacceptable that anyone in our country is forced to turn to a food bank. We’re working hard to reach a future where everyone has enough money to buy their own food, but we know we can’t get there on our own.

That’s why this week we’re marking the second year of our three-year Fight Hunger Create Change partnership with Asda and FareShare, and looking back at our work together so far. (more…)

A blog post by
Emma Greenwood
Area Manager for South West England

One of the greatest privileges of my job is spending time with our amazing food bank teams. Living, breathing, walking embodiments of our key values of community, compassion, dignity and justice.

I spent yesterday morning with a small group of project managers. We were discussing what their roles entailed – the list of responsibilities went on and on and on. (more…)