Netflix star Ashley Walters helps Canterbury Food Bank face increase in demand

KentOnline / KMTV

Volunteers have seen a 14% more households depending on food deliveries in just the first week of November.

Transcript

00:00All right, look. Any beans?

00:04Yep, just two thins.

00:06From top boy...

00:07I know London.

00:08To top volunteer.

00:11Netflix star Ashley Walters swapped the streets of London for the isles of Canterbury Foodbank

00:16and it's all to tackle the increasing demand on the charity and the increasing pressures

00:21on families that usually wouldn't rely on a foodbank.

00:25During the pandemic, a foodbank opened in our local church. And, you know, on the street

00:32we live on, it's quite well to do, you know, there's like people, you assume people have

00:37got money to support themselves. But during that period of time, we saw some of our neighbours,

00:42you know, queuing up at the foodbank and it really woke us up to the fact that actually

00:49no one's too far away from being in that position if something like that happens.

00:54In just the first seven days of November, more than 200 parcels have been sent out and

01:00that's already up by more than 14% compared to this time last year. More than half went

01:06to children.

01:07This is also linked to education in a strange way because if kids are not eating or struggling

01:14to eat or have got parents that are worrying about them eating the next day, then they're

01:19not focusing on homework, they're not focusing on, do you know what I mean, being in the

01:23right frame of mind for education. If you don't have breakfast in the morning, you go

01:26to school, you are not thinking about maths, you're thinking about when I'm going to eat,

01:30do you know what I mean? So this issue branches out into a lot of other political issues that

01:35we're having at the moment. So to fix this would help ease the pressure on some of the

01:39other things that we've got going on as well.

01:41Including government cuts to winter fuel payments, impacting pensioners. It's another reason

01:46why the foodbank have launched a winter campaign now ahead of Christmas, with a reverse advent

01:52calendar.

01:53The idea to put a different item in a bag every day of November, so by that busy Christmas

01:59period that can be a really difficult time for a lot of families, they have a full bag

02:03of essential items. And today, on day seven, it's a tin of beans.

02:09But the government says this dependence is unacceptable, so it's extended the household

02:14support fund, increased the national living wage and is developing strategies with the

02:19Child Poverty Taskforce.

02:21But on a busy day for the foodbank, up to 50 new inquiries will come in. That's 50 new

02:26families who are making that choice between heating or eating.

02:31I think there was a time when foodbanks were considered to be the organisation of last

02:35resort. But we find now that people are coming to us almost immediately, are being signed,

02:41will be appointed to us by other organisations. So it would be lovely to live in a world where

02:48foodbanks were no longer necessary. But I don't see that happening any time soon. And

02:54as I say, we're prepared for really whatever the winter will throw at us.

02:59They're predicting to deliver nearly 3,000 parcels over the next eight weeks, while doing

03:04their best to reverse food poverty this Christmas.

03:07Abbey Hook for KMTV in Canterbury.

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