Free bus travel home for Middlesbrough Foodbank users

Teesside families who rely on foodbanks to survive could find it a little easier to get home, with free bus travel.

Stagecoach are teaming up with the Middlesbrough charity, to make sure clients don't have to walk miles after collecting their food.

It’s after concerns were raised about people having to make long trips back with their food parcels, while often having kids with them.

Now vouchers will be offered with the handouts from the Charity’s 7 food collection points across Middlesbrough, these can be redeemed on Stagecoach buses across Teesside and Hartlepool.

It’s one of the first such schemes in the area, as Foodbank Manager Soroush Sadeghzahdeh explains;

“I see this as offering a more holistic support to our client group,

“It’s not just about offering them food, so we try to signpost them to appropriate agencies depending on their needs, where they can get further help,

“It’s just great to be able to do this at this point.

“Sometimes they’ll have to walk back home for miles with heavy bags because quite a lot of the food that we give out is non-perishable, which tends to be tinned items so the bags are quite heavy – so this would really help them.”

The program was spearheaded by Middlesbrough councillor Matthew Storey, who tells us why he felt compelled to do something;

“Foodbanks play a really important role at the minute, for people who are really at the sharp end and really struggling to make ends meet.

“What I thought would be good is obviously helping people get from the foodbank home, if you’ve got heavy bags it can be quite difficult, so whatever we can do to make that easier.

“The use of foodbanks has gone up a lot recently, between April and September last year, the foodbank in Middlesbrough dished out 2053 3-Day food parcels, and 783 of them were for children.

“So it’s quite an important role they play in the community.”

You can find out more about the scheme or how to get help from the foodbank via their website – at https://middlesbrough.foodbank.org.uk/