In 2022 nearly 4,000 food parcels were provided to support 9,300 adults and children. 3,000 of the food parcels were delivered. The number of people supported was almost the same as in 2021, a year when many were self-isolating with covid and vaccines were only starting to be rolled out from the late winter and spring. That the number of people requiring support has not fallen may be due to the lingering financial and other side effects of the pandemic. What is certain is that we are now supporting many people who are suffering ill health. Only towards the end of the year were we seeing referrals mention the effects of the cost of living crisis.
Receiving a food parcel should only ever be a temporary substitute for shopping for yourself and your family but we really are much better now at providing food parcels that are tailored to specific dietary needs and family sizes. A variety (that means lots) of standard packing lists introduced from July have made this possible when we also reviewed and generally increased the amount of food included. So there’s now guidance when preparing food parcels for people with different requirements: halal, South Asian, vegetarian, vegan, gluten free, lactose intolerance, diabetes, no cooking facilities. This has helped to improve consistency between teams and over time when regular food parcels are provided. We aim to supplement food parcels with fresh fruit and vegetables (including seasonal vegetables from our community garden at Brickfield), eggs, butter and bread. And fresh or frozen meats for families. In December the Hounslow Gurdwara provided 50 one-person frozen vegetarian meals which we hope will become a regular weekly feature in 2023.
We have also taken steps to improve our food safety procedures taking on board the recommendations of the inspector who called and which are now embedded in our daily activities to make sure we live up to our 5 star rating.
Christmas Hampers for residents have been annual and welcome treats for many years and in 2022 we were also able to provide Easter Hampers with chocolate eggs and treats and spring flowers. Support from Alexanders, a storage and logistics company who delivered many of the hampers, and Brentford FC made this possible.
Online cooking classes with Sara Ward of Hen Corner continued monthly in 2022 with FoodBox delivering the recipe kits with all the ingredients on the day of the classes. Typically, around 5 families joined each class and we know they find them enjoyable and worthwhile.
Over the Jubilee weekend several street parties and a Picnic in the Park (Brentford’s St.Paul’s Rec) raised lots of funds for FoodBox, so too did Talia Dean’s Raji Bhaji in Hounslow’s Bell Square in August.
In the autumn, with the support of Hanif Khan, we launched a volunteer appeal video and became much more active on Twitter and a new Facebook page and with articles published on local news websites and our own website. This helped celebrate donations received and the support FoodBox provides. At the suggestion and with the support of Martin Case of Brentford Voice we promoted a RememberNovember appeal for funds with fundraising at many events in Chiswick and Brentford. Our Christmas Appeal video featured players from Brentford FC and Buzz too. Many people in our community are concerned about others struggling with food and fuel insecurity and financial donations in November and December exceeded an incredible £40,000 beating all our expectations. Meanwhile purchases of food exceeded £20,000 over the same period.
And there has been much interest in volunteering with FoodBox and many new volunteers have been warmly welcomed in 2022. Local businesses and students at UWL got involved too. In a typical week 60 – 70 people might now be involved at our community centres, making deliveries, picking up donations, in our community garden or volunteering remotely to make sure the frontline teams have the information they need. There are some young volunteers involved each week too either at the community centre or organising local food collections. From September our daily activities, policies and procedures can now be found in one place in the Volunteer Handbook available on our website and will be updated soon for recent changes
This year
For 2023 our key challenge, as ever, is to respond to requests for food support for people in need who have been identified by our referral partners as quickly as possible providing appropriate foods safely. And being open to changing our procedures if there is a better way.
We’ll only be able to do this with fabulous support of our volunteers, who give their time freely in so many different ways to make sure we can provide our service, and the many people, community groups and businesses who make donations.
Thank you so much.