The sad news is that in 2017/18 Southport Foodbank was called upon to provide almost 50,000 meals as a result of referrals of local people in crisis to it by professional agencies.
This is an increase of over 10% compared to the previous year.
The good news is that the generosity of local people donating food to help their less fortunate fellow citizens matched that need and grew by almost 13% in the same period.
But let’s be clear – while we are proud to play our part in delivering the food to those in need and providing them with other support so that their situations can be quickly alleviated, we really do not want to be here!
The Trussell Trust has commissioned many studies which have evidenced the reasons for this growth and it is now up to the politicians to deal with the human tragedies their policies are largely responsible for.
Whilst locally our food stocks are generally adequate we are currently very short of fruit juice or cordial, tinned tomatoes, tinned fish and meat which can be heated (eg tins of stewed steak, chicken curry, minced beef etc). If you are able to help, please do. We shall be grateful to you.