Hackney Foodbank makes Christmas for residents on the breadline
Tanya of Hackney Foodbank handing out Christmas gifts with volunteer driver Ed Fenwick
Volunteers at Hackney Foodbank have transformed Christmas this year for hundreds of people in extreme poverty.
Residents who feared they’d have nothing to eat and no gifts for their children were moved to tears when they arrived at food distribution centres in the week running up to Christmas.
Many were given hampers and festive treats. Hundreds of toys, gift vouchers and books were passed on to parents for their children and new Christmas jumpers, which had been donated by the Salvation Army and Tesco, were also gifted.
Tanya Whitfield, Head of Services at Hackney Foodbank, said: “It has been so moving – it’s amazing to have been able to help so many people this Christmas. Some have been so surprised by the extra kindness shown that they’ve sat and cried.
“The vouchers we’ve given to teenagers will mean they can have normal experiences like going to the cinema with their friends – that makes my heart sing.”
Hundreds of the toys and vouchers were donated by the Winter Toy Appeal, an initiative run by the Local Buyers Club in partnership with Location Location estate agency and the Hackney Children and Baby Bank. 65 hampers were donated by F4ID, an impact Fintech and social enterprise.
Tanya added: “Without our festive food parcels, our visitors wouldn’t have anything special to eat on Christmas Day – some would have gone to local charities for hot meals, others would have made do with pasta or what little they had in the cupboard.”
Some residents however had to turn down the offer of a turkey dinner because they couldn’t afford to heat the food at home.
Tanya added: “In the decade that Hackney Foodbank has been going, we’ve never known things as bad as this. A lot of people are living in third-world conditions. If you treated animals like this – leaving them hungry and cold - the whole country would be up in arms. At the food bank we do what we can to make Christmas as special as possible but something has to change.
“As each new year dawns, we hope the need for food banks will diminish – tragically, demand has only gone up and as we prepare to welcome in 2023, we urgently need more donations of food and money.”