We believe that everyone deserves to be treated with compassion, dignity and respect, and that no-one should have to use a food bank to survive. Until food banks are no longer needed, we’re committed to being here to help you.
We’re taking seriously our responsibility to ensure that all visitors, volunteers and staff at the food bank are protected as much as possible from coronavirus.
As someone needing to use the food bank, we want you to stay well. We also want our volunteers and staff to stay well because we care about them too, and because they want to stay well and help keep the food bank open.
Our five Centres are open at the usual times, to provide emergency food to people who are referred to us. But following Government & NHS advice, we’re changing the way we operate. From today we’ll be providing pre-prepared bags of food that we’ll hand to you outside the door of our food bank centres, in exchange for the food bank referral voucher you’ve been given by the agency who’s referred you.
This means:
- Food parcels will be pre-packed during this time, including pre-backed bags for vegetarians. Changes will only be made for people with allergies or for dietary reasons (eg if you’re diabetic).
- We won’t be able to swap items that are in your pre-packed bags.
- We’ll ask you to wait outside the food bank centre while volunteers get the right-size bags for your household. They will bring them out to you as quickly as possible.
- We will not be serving snacks and drinks.
- Our Foodbank Advice project is still here to help you resolve issues with benefits, housing, debt etc. This has switched to phone advice only – no face-to-face appointments will take place for the time being. If you need advice, please give your name and phone number to the volunteer helping you, and one of our advisers will call you back as soon as possible.
- We may have fewer volunteers than usual and they may appear a bit rushed – but they are so glad to be supporting you.
- Food supplies may become in short supply and food parcels may not look the same as they did just a few weeks ago.
- We may have to close a food bank centre at short notice.
- We’ll continue to do all we can to support you and – as always – our thoughts and prayers are with you.
For advice on Coronavirus symptoms etc please visit the NHS website:
https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/coronavirus-covid-19/
For latest guidance from the Government, visit the Gov.UK
website: https://www.gov.uk/government/topical-events/coronavirus-covid-19-uk-government-
response
We’ll keep updating our website and Twitter feed @WandsworthFB, so please check back regularly.
