‘Busiest year ever’ for Lanarkshire food bank as it feeds thousands of kids

A Lanarkshire foodbank has had its busiest year since being founded as the cost of living crisis and the covid-19 pandemic hit locals hard.

New figures have revealed that Rutherglen and Cambuslang Foodbank saw figures increase by 25 per cent on their previous high as volunteers helped to feed thousands of locals – including over 2000 kids.

The new stats were described as “appalling” by staff, who fear the situation will worsen as 2022 goes on.

For the 2021/2022 year, the foodbank fed 5962 people, of which 3,786 were adults and 2176 were children.

That’s the highest number the service has provided for since opening in 2013, and saw them reach 25 per cent more people than their previous busiest year.

The number of youngsters had soared in particular, as in 2019/2020 the foodbank helped around 1200 children.

Katharina Nimmo, the manager at the foodbank, told Lanarkshire Live that volunteers have noticed a considerable increase in the amount of families using the service.

She told Lanarkshire Live : “It’s appalling how many people are now having to use the foodbank.

“We have seen a big rise in families needing help, whereas before there was a greater margin between single people and families in foodbank usage – that has changed.

“We paused the referral scheme for the first half of the year when covid was occuring, but the referrals were restarted in October and since then we have seen it was still more than anything we had before.

“I’m really worried about the cost of living and fuel costs, as we are not through the worst of this, and people are choosing between food and warmth.

“We are seeing people who’ve never used foodbanks before who are now coming in. The £20 extra on Universal Credit expiring last year also hit people.”

Earlier this year we told that donations to the food bank were starting to decline as a side effect from the price rises for food and utility bills.

The figures were released at the group’s AGM, and also showed that they facilitated fuel card top-ups for 290 people, issued 356 SIM cards to promote digital inclusion and connectivity to locals and provided warm items, such as blankets and fleeces, for another 156 people.

In total a whopping 55,466kg of food donations were provided to the food bank, of which 50,337kg was then distributed amongst locals.

Rutherglen MSP Clare Haughey said the figures made sobering reading.

She told us : “I commend Rutherglen and Cambuslang Foodbank in what has been their busiest ever year, for the good work that they do in helping local people who are struggling with the combined impacts of austerity and the cost of living crisis.

“Many of those they are helping are in work, and many will not have had to access the foodbank before.

“I share the same vision as food bank operators – they are not a long-term solution to poverty, which is why the Scottish Government is doing everything it can within our powers – including introducing a shopping voucher pilot scheme – to make food banks the last port of call.

“Over the last two years we have invested around £2.5bn to support low income households, including over £1 billion to directly support children and £130m targeted at tackling food insecurity.”

The food bank meet at Rutherglen Baptist Community Church every Monday and Thursday, at Whitlawburn Community Resource Centre every Tuesday and at Cambuslang Baptist Church every Friday.

Katharina added: “The only positive is that we are proud of how our volunteers rose to the challenge. We had a big move and introduced a new working system, and everyone made sure it worked. We also are so grateful to the whole community for continuing to support us.”

Items currently needed urgently by the foodbank include UHT milk, jam, cereals, tinned fruit, tinned fish, pasta sauce, rice pudding, sugar, tinned spaghetti, macaroni cheese and diluting juice.

More details on helping the group can be found here.

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