LiveWest has also stepped in with a £500 grant for Falmouth Food Coop, a local food co-operative which enables people to buy food from local farmers and suppliers and encourages the connection between people, food and community.
Since March 2020, Falmouth Food Coop Kitchen has been providing food for people who need it most through the delivery of nutritious hot meals. At the end of 2020, they signed the lease on ten acres of land near St Gluvias Church, within walking distance from the town centre with a vision that the community field will provide another link in the chain enabling people who receive food from the kitchen to come and be involved in the production.
Tallulah, a volunteer from Falmouth Food Coop said: “The Love Land Community field project is an amazing opportunity for our whole community to come together. We really want to make it as accessible as possible and offer workshops that get everyone involved in growing, working with local schools too so that kids can come up and learn to grow food as well as prepare great food. The pandemic is showing us how fragile our system of food is and that it is still important everyone is still able to choose where their food comes from.“
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 Falmouth Food Co Op 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 Falmouth Food Coop 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.