£10,000 funding for food boxes to help East Lancashire residents

Community & Business Partners CIC has recently received funding of £10,000 from Lancashire COVID-19 Community Support Fund which will be used to help 500 families over a ten week period.

The food packages are available for families struggling with food poverty, a topic which was heavily publicised during lockdown by Manchester United footballed Marcus Rashford.

Chief Executive Officer Amanda Meachin said: "People have been living in food poverty for a long time and this has just exacerbated it.

"People queue for us for free food three days a week and our queues were getting longer so we decided we would try and get funding.

"We get people that will come and say that they haven't had any food for two or three days and we ask them why they haven't come sooner."

Emergency food provision for people facing food poverty and food insecurity has intensified during the crisis due to rising unemployment and job insecurity.

Amanda wants people to not feel embarrassed about having to collect free food and wants to clear the air around families living in food poverty.

"There is no stigma about having to pay your bills and having to put food on the table," Amanda said.

"There is no stigma in having to choose between feeding your children or affording your train ticket to work.

"We say to everybody the exactly same thing that all we want to do is make sure that people who that need the food get it. It's really difficult times and we don't judge anybody."

At the start of the pandemic, Amanda applied to DEFRA for food funding which allowed community food distribution centres to purchase food for distribution to families in need.

The food parcels include plenty of options for families

Food packages will include enough food for a family for a week, including plenty of healthy options. Photo: Community and Business partners

The charity received a fund of £30,000 which was use to help over 550 families over a ten week period, averaging about four tonnes of food donations per week. 

Food is also picked up from supermarkets around Blackburn that is close to or at its use by date which people are able to come and collect without an application process. 

"People can come back day after day for the free food," Amanda added. "If we have picked it up free from a supermarket because they were going to throw it in a bin, if you are willing to eat it and you will come and collect it then you can.

"We don't means test that and we don't monitor it or record who takes it.

"We also buy some boxes from Fareshare which are highly subsidised but we ask people to cover the cost of our van our driver and our subscription to Fareshare."

The Lancashire Community Support Fund has also helped other charities around Lancashire including Inspiring Grace in Pendle and Motiv8-lancs CIC in Hyndburn.

51% of all projects funded by the ‘Lancashire Responding, COVID-19 Community Support Fund’ is for emergency food provision, provided by local groups within communities.