#feedbirmingham sets out lockdown legacy
Over the next five months #feedbirmingham is set to support 17 foodbanks and food providers across the city with the thousands of pounds raised since the start of the Covid19 crisis.
This ‘lockdown legacy’ is thanks to the generosity of people from across Birmingham and the West Midlands, #feedbirmingham collected over 5,300 bags of food, toiletries and baby supplies to bolster supplies at foodbanks and emergency food distributors across the City during the initial Covid 19 lockdown, helping over 800,000 people.
On top of that almost £19,000 was donated to #feedbirmingham by generous Brummies, trusts and organisations including the Albert Gubay Charitable Foundation . This covers the weekly cost for buying food and other essential items for 17 food projects until March 2021.
Carrie Pearson, community development worker at Warley Baptist Church, one of the recipient organisations of the funding, said:
“Our COVID-19 community lunch project offers meals to around 70-80 people who are isolating each week in the local community.
“With the help of #feedbirmingham, who have kindly donated six months of Fareshare membership funding, we are able to continue this amazing project for as long as it is needed. A big thank you to all involved.”
#feedbirmingham is using the money donated during the first lockdown to fund the Fareshare costs for 17 food projects for six months, from October 2020 to March 2021. The funding covers the weekly cost of 80kg of food for each project. Each project is unique, tackling food poverty and based in many different areas of Birmingham, Sandwell and Solihull.
Fred Rattley, CEO of Thrive Birmingham, said: “As we move into a second lockdown and more and more people are losing jobs it is more important than ever that we support foodbanks and emergency food distributors so that no-one in Birmingham goes hungry.
“I am grateful to everyone who has donated to #feedbirmingham so we can continue to provide support but if you still want to help you can. You could become a food champion by collecting food in your street. Please put a box outside your door and ask your neighbours to donate at a set time and deliver to your local foodbank in a Covid safe way. We can help you find out where that is and when they are open to receive donations.”
To find out where your local food bank is please contact feedbrum@thrivetogetherbham.org
To donate to #feedbirmingham go to www.tiny.cc/feedbirmingham
Fact file:
Thrive Together Birmingham set up the #feedbirmingham initiative at the start of May with the support of Edgbaston Foundation, West Midlands Police, and a network of Food Champions from in and around Birmingham in order to help meet the food needs of the increased number of people accessing foodbanks.
FareShare is the UK’s national network of charitable food redistributors. It takes good quality surplice food from right across the food industry and gets it to around 11,000 frontline charities and community groups. 17 Birmingham, Sandwell and Solihull based projects now have their membership to this organisation paid for six months meaning they will receive several trolleys worth of food every week.