Salisbury Foodbank seeing 'worrying' rise in demand for services
The charity says they're seeing more working families and elderly people needing support
Salisbury's Foodbank say the increase in demand for their services during 2023 so far is becoming a 'worry' for them.
They gave out 100% more food parcels in January compared to the previous year, and 75% more in February.
Figures for March are yet to be collated, but they're expected to continue to show increases.
With the Easter holidays upon us, there are concerns that demand could rise further.
Maria Stevenson in the manager of Salisbury's Foodbank and says there's a particular group coming forward for help:
"We're sending out less single food boxes and more families are reaching out for help. So yeah, that is a huge worry for us, more working families are finding it hard to be able to provide for their families."
In the first two months of 2022, an average of 33% of those fed through Salisbury Foodbank support were children, it's now risen to 40% of service users for the same period this year.
Maria says there have been some other heartbreaking cases too:
"We had a man in his 90s come to access our support recently. It's times like that, that really wipe us off our feet, it was just the unexpected. They had walked into a foodbank, for the first time in their life probably, and asked for help and we were there for them."
In the last week alone, the charity's also put out appeals for extra stocks at the Foodbank's warehouse.
They've asked for donations of tinned potatoes, tinned fruit and long life milk - as well as for toiletries:
Manager Maria Stevenson says they could need to hold extra supermarket collections soon:
"We're struggling at the moment in that we're giving away more food than we're taking in. That's a historical trend, we always have a lull in demand (of donations at this time of year) so we're not too worried at the moment with our stock levels, but we are keeping a close eye on it."