THE foodbank was able to help dozens of people in January thanks to over a ton of food donated by the Launceston community, town councillors heard at their meeting last week.

The project manager of Launceston Foodbank, Yvonne King, was invited to the meeting of Launceston Town Council to tell councillors about the foodbank’s work. The foodbank opened in 2011.

Both the foodbank and the charity shop, which funds the foodbank, are based down on Newport Industrial Estate.

Yvonne said she was pleased to have been invited to tell councillors about the foodbank: “When I had the invite I did start to think to myself shall I just give a speech on how we work and it made me think slightly differently.

“Two weeks ago I was invited to St Stephens Primary School, first of all to speak to the junior children and then also invited to speak to Year F — the first year at school.

“They were learning about people who help in the community and I felt quite chuffed they thought about the foodbank.

“I was thinking, how do I explain to five-year-olds what a foodbank is, how it works and why it’s there — I don’t want to frighten them or worry them.”

She asked the children what they had eaten for tea the night before, breakfast and lunch, and asked how they would feel if they hadn’t eaten. She said she was surprised the answers ‘sad’ and ‘upset’ came up first before ‘hungry’.

Yvonne added: “That struck me that as an adult, if we hadn’t eaten for 24 hours that we would probably be upset and sad.

“That leads me on to what the foodbank is all about. It’s about receiving donations of food from the community we live in, working with agencies — we are partnered to nearly 90 — that issue the foodbank vouchers and the client brings their voucher to us. We provide them with enough food for breakfast, lunch and tea for three days per person in the household.”

She explained the people who use the foodbank are in crisis, but that there is no limit to the reasons as to why somebody might be in crisis. Yvonne added: “If I wasn’t paid for five weeks I would be in crisis.

“Claiming benefits — it has been simplified by Universal Credit but for anybody claiming benefits at the moment, there is a minimum five week wait.

“Some people can get over [a crisis], some people can’t.

“It can be somebody self-employed — all of a sudden a builder doesn’t have any work. There are an awful lot of self-employed people that live in the community. If they don’t work they don’t get paid.

“The majority of people we are seeing are people on low income. People who are working.

“There is a myth about the foodbank that we perhaps hand out food to people on benefits or scroungers. That is not the case. In the past 12 months it has been people on low income — people in work.

“For January, we fed 85 people over 31 days — 52 adults, 33 were children. As we give each person the equivalent of three meals a day, that’s 255 meals.”

The foodbank had just over a ton of food donated in January. Its current stock of food is just over five tons.

The foodbank can occasionally even accept perishable items. For example, Yvonne said a local bakery offered bread and rolls they did not sell, but added: “They fully understand it depends on how many clients we get. It’s very difficult if we get offered stuff like cheese and butter because we just haven’t got the cold storage to keep them. We always consider everything. Whatever we can take, we will.”

Yvonne explained the donations are from ‘lots of different places’, with Tesco a huge support to the foodbank.

There is a collection box at the supermarket that foodbank volunteers empty three times a week, but two weeks ago they emptied it four times.

Yvonne added: “I don’t think we have ever seen such high donations in the donation box.

“Tesco support all Trussell Trust foodbanks, we are a foodbank that belongs to the Trussell Trust. They allow us to have two big food collections every year. When we have our food collection here in Launceston, every other Trussell Trust foodbank will be having their collection.

“Tesco are so supportive. When it’s all weighed in they also give us 20% back of cash, which is brilliant. Every Trussell Trust foodbank in the country gets that.”

The foodbank is also supported by Co-Op, schools and churches.

The idea for the charity shop, which does not fall under the Trussell Trust banner, came about because after the foodbank got up and running thanks to a lot of grant funding, they felt they stood ‘little chance’ of securing further grant funding.

Yvonne said: “We realised very quickly unless we did something pretty drastic the foodbank probably would end up closing.”

She said they decided to ‘take a bit of a risk’ and open up the charity shop, and now the foodbank is self-funding.

The foodbank is open five mornings a week, and the charity shop is open from 10am to 2pm Monday to Friday, and Saturdays from 10am to 1pm. There is an average of four volunteers in the charity shop every day and between two and four in the foodbank every day.

Yvonne said: “They work very, very hard and are very committed.”

The council heard there are a couple of projects on the foodbank’s ‘wishlist’, including looking at how they can help children in receipt of free school meals in the school holidays.

Yvonne said: “We are very aware children who are in school in receipt of free school meals, they will be able to access breakfast at their breakfast club and a hot meal at school but when it’s school holidays those meals have got to be replaced by the parent.”

She said there are 8,000 children between eight and 16 in Cornwall in receipt of free school meals. The foodbank is hoping to be able to trial providing those children with a breakfast and something for lunch during the Easter holidays.

Yvonne added that at Launceston College, ‘about 60 to 70 children per school year’ are eligible for free school meals.

Town councillor Paul O’Brien said to Yvonne: “Thank you very much on behalf of a huge raft of people, many of whom I don’t know. I think you actually do a wonderful job. I take my hat off to you.”

Cllr Rob Tremain explained he opened the foodbank during his term of office as mayor of Launceston and said while it was a cause for celebration, it’s a ‘two edged sword’, adding: “Where the hell are we that we need a foodbank in Lanson?

“What they have achieved is absolutely amazing.”