A NEW foodbank centre in Bemerton Heath catering for working people and families is helping “relieve pressure” on other local centres in the city.

Salisbury Foodbank returned to Bemerton Heath after closing its foodbank centre during the lockdown in 2020. It’s centre at St Michael’s Church cafe is open from 3.30pm to 6pm on Tuesday and Thursdays.

It was a way for the charity to increase its coverage by supporting more working people and families who could not access the centre during working hours.

It started in August and has already been well received.

Foodbank manager Maria Stevenson said: “We’re seeing lots of people coming to our support service at Bemerton Heath as we’re open in the evenings until 6pm at St Michael’s.”

For those who are working or studying, opening in the evenings has made a real difference to people being able to get support.

She added: “Being able to operate outside core or school or working hours is really important for us and the future that we are building within our foodbanks. Just being accessible to as many people as possible.”

Speaking about the response from foodbank users, Maria said: “It has been received really well and I have seen that in the amount of people that are coming to those locations.”

The centre is issuing food to 12 per cent of its demand, which Maria says has helped “relieve some of the pressure on St Paul’s”.

However, keeping up with demand still continues to be a challenge. Maria says that the centre at St Paul’s ran out of food twice last week leading to additional deliveries needing to be rushed down to top up supplies.

“It gives you some idea of how reactive we have to be. We are really on the hop and kind of chasing our tails trying to keep up with it,” she added.

Earlier this month, it joined forces with Central fruits to roll out an initiative with the Salisbury business supplying and deliver fresh fruit and vegetables to foodbank users.

The fruit and vegetable boxes add to the food already given out by the foodbank and is being run as a pilot.

Speaking of the fresh food initiative Maria says it is “going really well” and orders have been “growing more and more”.

The foodbank has other plans in the pipeline to provide more support to people impacted by food insecurity.

 

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