Trussell Trust research on foodbank usage over school holidays

[AliceDMumsnet]

Hello,

The Trussell Trust have been in touch about their recent research which shows a rise in the number of children being fed by foodbanks over the summer holidays, with 4,412 more three day emergency food supplies being given to children in July and August 2016 than in the previous two months.

Between July and August 2016, of all 67,506 three day emergency food supplies from The Trussell Trust foodbank network that went to children,

27% went to 0-4 year olds

47% went to 5-11 year olds

21% went to 12-16 year olds

5% went to children of an unknown age.

The new figures come as The Trussell Trust launches its national Summer Appeal and encourages people to donate to their local foodbank as the school holidays start.

We at Mumsnet HQ sometimes get asked what Mumsnet users think about families using foodbanks, and about our users' experiences of using them themselves, so do please let us know what you think. Do you have experience of using foodbanks to feed yourself and/or your family?

Thanks,
MNHQ

am concerned that food banks only give 3 days food and discourage repeat requests or so I am told.

With trussell its a 3 day food package and 3 can be provided in a 6 to 12 month period. Then sadly its no more.
They are meant to be emergency fixes not a permenant crutch as it were.
I think most other foodbanks are similar.

Thank you Chester , I don't know the neighbour's circumstances but assume things must be bad if they need a food bank delivery (the church has a van that they use to deliver) and so did what I thought might help. I hope it helped them out that week anyway and knowing somebody cared raised their spirits at least.

I usually donate, especially doing some big shops at Christmas. I hadn't thought about school hols donation, so good reminder here.

Never had to use one but I've seen how my single-mum cleaner struggles in the school holidays. She works so hard but has no support and has had to quit her main job this summer because she can't afford holiday care and they couldn't be flexible. I try to help by (in addition to fair pay), being flexible about times/days/hours, encouraging her to bring her DC and giving them treats when they're here.

In her case free lunches for her DC over the holidays would probably make a difference, but cheap safe holiday clubs would be even better. Local schools don't seem to send out info on the cheaper clubs until about a week before the hols, which is far too late for most people. (There are plenty of expensive clubs at local private schools, but they're 2-3 times the cost of the cheaper clubs.)

Not sure what else I can do though suggestions are welcome.

Our school (MC area with a very limited number of WC children) has had food bank collections by choice of the parents. We were raising money for school funds, for a school which is already pretty well-equipped, and the parents rebelled and made a parallel collection for the food bank because we felt that would be fairer. People have been extremely generous.

Over the holidays I have taken my children most weeks to the supermarket to buy food/treats for the food bank and have talked about how some children have little food or choice in what they eat x

I refuse to donate anymore due a poster (family combined income of £40K per annum) asking 'she should use a foodbank'.

I've only just seen this thread and copper you have made me very angry. The worst time in my life was when I was made redundant and had a brief spell on IS (my children were very young) whilst I looked for another job.
In a private rental the gap between the cost of rent and what the LA provided meant that most of my IS and Child Benefit AND CTC went on keeping a roof over our heads. I also topped up the meters so we didn't have to sit in the dark and cold from 4pm onwards.
Food banks weren't as established as they are now but I would have used one without a doubt. You have no fucking clue.
FWIW there was no Sky TV or internet or cigarettes. Life is on the up for me now and I hope it continues. I'm self employed and doing well but all it would take is illness or injury to be back at the bottom of the heap and its WORSE now because you get even less support in the form of HB and rents have sky rocketed in the last ten years since my period of despair.
As for building a safety net despite earning ok now.. not a chance. Most of my income still goes on rent. I'm not unique.

I refuse to donate anymore due a poster (family combined income of £40K per annum) asking 'she should use a foodbank'.

Even though she didn't go to the food bank and was told by several people she wouldn't get a food parcel anyway?

I refuse to donate anymore due a poster (family combined income of £40K per annum) asking 'she should use a foodbank'.

Totally your choice.
I dont understand the readon but people are not forced to donate.

For those asking about rural areas the cost of living is significantly higher. Gas is 4-5 times higher than mains. A car is essential in some areas to get to school, work, shops and drs. In some areas the bus is once a week with a 30 minute turnaround. And costs about a fiver for the return journey. The cost of food in small local shops is 10 times higher - think shopping in your local corner store for everything if you are lucky enough to have a shop.

Many rural areas have their own food banks and volunteers deliver to the door. In practice you find that if you see kids walking to school in the pissing rain that you make sure your daily journey is timed to coincide just in case the didn't accidentally miss the bus. If it happens a lot you will find gardens need doing or cars washing or baby sitting. Nothing said and no judgement just a little help because you were going that way anyway.

Thank you for starting this thread, it reminded me to drop off a couple of shopping bags of "end of summer holidays" treats and goodies to our local food bank.

I don't believe the school story either. I am always overwhelmed by the generosity of my students when we fundraise for the FoodBank

amp.theguardian.com/society/2017/aug/26/blighted-coalfields-village-life-pit-village-people-starving-horden-co-durham

Surely, Child Benefit is paid direct to the mother? It always used to be, on the grounds that it meant the children would be fed. Apologies if the rules have changed recently; I haven't received it for some years.

I often visit the cathedral in the city I live which has a food bank collection point I donate to. It has had unprecedented demand over the school holidays and they can't keep up. They are desperate for donations. It has never been this bad before.

I volunteer at a Food Bank and we get incredibly generous donations from all our local schools, particularly around Harvest Festival time.

I know this point has been made before but just to reiterate, not all Food Banks are run by Trussel Trust, many are run independently (often by local Churches). The one I help at is independent and does not have strict 'three visits only rules' - we would never, ever turn anyone away - regardless of whether they have been 'officially' referred to us or not. It is not our place to judge and our local community is so generous that we never run low on donations.

Surely, Child Benefit is paid direct to the mother?

No it goes to who ever completes the paper work as long as they have PR or gaurdianship.

Then that should be changed back so that it can only be paid to the mother.

Seriously, I am horrified by that. When it was established, as Family Allowance, it could only be collected in person from the post office by the mother, to try to prevent abusive husbands taking food money from their children. I don't claim that men didn't beat it out of their wives, but hopefully once you knew the score, you would it convert it into groceries before returning home.

Then that should be changed back so that it can only be paid to the mother.

Given there are lots of single full time dads and gaurdians I doubt that will happen anytime soon.

And, if I may, I am again impressed by the human understanding of the people who wrote those rules. What moron doesn't understand that not all husbands are kindly gentlemen? Except politicians and would be policitician who draft laws and regulations according to their experience.

I do hear you Cosmic, but bearing in mind the law of averages, would it not make sense to assume the responsible parent was female and offer a brief variation for a father to assume PR?

OC family allowence was never just paid to the mum.
You had a family allowence book and anyone could collect it from the post office. The couple were registered on it or if a single parent just the parent.

Only when the books were stopped and bank or post office accounts were required did it usually become in the mums name.
I still had a family allowence book in 2002.

Joint UC clains are paid in to a nom7nated bank account so financially abused partners have even less claim to household money and UC includes tax credits.

Ignoring some of the wilfully ignorant on the thread...

As someone who runs a Trussell Foodbank, I thought I'd clear a few things up:

When you donate to the foodbank, all the donations are weighed. These weights are then communicated back to the supermarkets where the collections took place. Tesco use this weight to calculate a rough financial value, which they then donate, so they're not making a profit on people donating. Other supermarkets don't do this yet, but hopefully one day!

The 3 parcels in 6 months is a guideline, not a rule. If you show up a fourth time, it will trigger a more in depth discussion about how you can resolve your situation, but we wouldn't just send you away hungry!

Yes, we can share food with other organisations (non Trussell food banks, soup kitchens, low cost cookery lessons, lunch clubs etc). Whilst we prioritise good for our clients, we don't want to hoard food, so if we have a few good weeks of donations, we try to share with other charities who haven't done so well. The weights of all the food that goes in and out are recorded, so we can make sure we're not giving away too much food.