LiveWest has stepped in with a £1000 grant as Remake: Cornwall – a re-purpose organisation based in Holmbush, St Austell responds to increasing food poverty in the local area.
Supporting people across Par, St Blazey and Tywardreath, St Austell & The Clays; Remake: Cornwall is run by 25 volunteers passionate about keeping food, textiles and furniture from landfill.
Carolyn Boyce from Remake: Cornwall said: “We are currently supporting approximately 200 families each week with free fresh food. We continued during the entire lockdown and distributed over 2500 food parcels by collecting from a minimum of four supermarkets per evening and other local businesses within the community. This has now increased, and we are now collecting from 7 supermarkets daily.
“We have been collecting daily for two years this July, and we are now fundraising to cover volunteers fuel, electricity and rent costs, recently we were also running regular cooking classes to help local community members learn to cook using fresh ingredients providing healthy fresh affordable meals for the whole family.
“As we share a building with Prosperity Matters there is also access to basic IT support alongside HMRC online services as well as Community Repaint Cornwall."
The Covid-19 pandemic has brought food poverty into sharp focus, leaving more people than before struggling to afford or access a nutritious diet.
With food poverty becoming a day-to-day reality for more and more people in Cornwall and parents skipping meals in order to make ends meet, organisations like Remake: Cornwall are playing a key role in supporting families experiencing food poverty.
Mai Evans, Community Connector for LiveWest who is heading up the food poverty action for LiveWest in Cornwall, said: “As we fight as a nation against coronavirus, we have donated over £86,000 to groups tackling food poverty in the past year. The importance of sustainable food access methods to enable greater food security for all is an important focus for LiveWest.
“It is fantastic to be able to support Remake: Cornwall as they do a great job in supporting people who experience food shortages.”
Covid-19 has deepened the financial hardship faced by low income households and has also created a newly vulnerable group who were financially stable pre-Covid.
With household budgets on a shoestring, the end of the Furlough Scheme and the proposed cut to the £20 uplift to Universal Credit will only increase the challenges faced by individuals and families already struggling to pay their food bills.
LiveWest has stepped in to help support people in financial crisis across the region by donating £36,000 to the UK’s biggest food bank network, the Trussell Trust since March 2020.
The Trussell Trust, which support around 25 food banks across the South West, saw an increase of 42% in the number of parcels given out during the first six months of the pandemic.
The demand for food banks was thrown into sharp focus when it emerged that the Trussell Trust had given out 99,875 parcels across the South West between the beginning of April and the end of September, compared to 70,337 for the same period in 2019.
Emma Greenwood, Trussell Trust Area Manager for the South West, said: “These statistics are just the tip of the iceberg, as we know that food banks in the Trussell Trust network only represent a proportion of the total food aid support out there with independent food banks, charities and community groups all doing their bit to help.
“The support of LiveWest means we can remain agile to respond to the fast-changing situation and ensure food banks continue to provide the lifeline of emergency food and additional support for people in crisis.
“There was a concern that, at some point, there would be generosity fatigue but that hasn’t happened.
“There is a real sense that everyone has their part to play in this, and there is a universal recognition that no one should be going hungry.
“It’s never been more important for individuals, businesses and organisations to come together to both respond to the immediate needs of their communities, but also turn their attention to working together to build a future where emergency food isn’t needed because everyone has enough money to pay for the essentials in life.”
The Trussell Trust is concerned its network will continue to see unusually high levels of need over the coming months because of ongoing job losses and economic hardship.
This could spark an increase of people being swept into poverty and experiencing food insecurity.
Emma Greenwood added: “In terms of the future, we know that the economic impact of the pandemic has only just begun to be felt.”
LiveWest has also donated £12,000 to 12 independent food banks across the region as part of its support for groups and organisations rallying to help the most vulnerable in society.
The independent food banks were selected in areas where LiveWest has the highest number of its homes and where demand for food banks was at its highest.