East Ham charity Bonny Downs Community Association (BDCA) today announced that it recently provided its 5000th emergency food parcel to local people in need, and almost a third (30%) of the recipients were children. The foodbank is delivered on Wednesdays in partnership with Bonny Downs Baptist Church and Newham Foodbank, and it opened in 2013.
Recently, the foodbank has experienced an increase in demand from people struggling with changes to the benefits system and with the cost of living on low incomes. This experience echoes the wider picture from The Trussell Trust, whose last report shows that the year April 2018 to March 2019 was the busiest year for foodbanks in the UK since it was founded. It calculates that the number of food parcels given out has increased 73% in five years, with the reasons including benefits not covering the cost of living (33%), and delays or changes to benefits being paid.
Peter Laing, Chief Executive of Bonny Downs Community Association, said:
“We long to see the day when nobody in Newham will need to use a foodbank, but sadly we continue to see high demand. We’re proud to have been able to support local people with more than 5,000 parcels and we will continue to provide emergency food to those in need.”
Angie Allgood, Project Coordinator at Bonny Downs Community Association, said:
“We’re so thankful to our fantastic team of volunteers who give their time to the foodbank week-in week-out, preparing and distributing the food parcels, cooking and serving up a hot lunch for our visitors, and offering the opportunity of personal debt and benefits advice for those who want it.
We’re also very grateful to the local community for their continued generosity that keeps the foodbank running. Our stock levels are really struggling to keep up with demand right now, and we welcome both regular and one-off financial giving as well as new donations of food.”
Bonny Downs foodbank welcomes:
Regular and one-off financial donations via localgiving.org/charity/bdca specifying ‘foodbank’.
Donations of non-perishable food items to The Well Community Centre, 49 Vicarage Ln, East Ham, London E6 6DQ between the hours of 9am to 5pm, Monday to Friday.
Online supermarket food deliveries to Bonny Downs Church Hall, 18 Darwell Close, East Ham, London E6 6BT between the hours of 10am to 2pm on Wednesdays only.
New volunteers to help out at the foodbank on Wednesdays. For more information, contact [email protected]
To get involved with BDCA’s Foodbank, visit bonnydowns.org/foodbank or follow them on twitter @bdca247 and facebook.com/bonnydowns for regular updates.
