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Food bank vouchers
If your income isn't covering essential costs, here's how to get a food bank voucher for emergency food and support
There are many local and national agencies who can give you a food bank voucher to exchange for emergency food and support at one of our food bank welcome centres if you need it. You will need a new food bank voucher each time you need our support.
Local agencies that refer to Wandsworth Foodbank include: Citizens Advice Wandsworth, Wandsworth Borough Council teams, schools, children’s centres, housing associations, GPs and social prescribers, social services, community mental health teams, probation officers, and other local charities like South West London Law Centres, Wandsworth Carers and Little Village.
**If you’re a resident of Wandsworth Borough (even if you’re in temporary accommodation outside of the borough), you can also apply for emergency financial help from Wandsworth Council. This can be helpful instead of or alongside a food bank voucher, and includes:
- Crisis grants (supermarket vouchers and prepayment gas and electricity vouchers)
- Discretionary Housing Payments (help with rent in some circumstances)
- Community care grants (help with essential white goods and basic furniture in some circumstances)
If you’re not currently in touch with a local agency who you can ask for a food bank voucher, you can:
1. Contact Citizens Advice Wandsworth
If you can, please complete this short online form to contact Citizens Advice Wandsworth. Please tick ‘I need a food voucher’. This is the quickest way to ask them for help.
If online is not possible for you, you can call Citizens Advice Wandsworth’s free AdviceLine on 0808 278 7833 to speak to a volunteer adviser (open Monday to Friday, 10am-4pm). They’ll talk confidentially with you about your situation and refer you to our food bank if needed. When you call you’ll have to wait in a queue, due to high demand for their help. Citizens Advice Wandsworth answers most calls within 45 minutes, but calls are free from a UK mobile or landline.
2. Call our free national helpline
You can call Trussell Trust’s national food bank helpline for free on 0808 208 2138, and talk confidentially to a trained Citizens Advice adviser. This helpline is open Monday to Friday, 9am-5pm (closed on public holidays).
Like local Citizens Advice Wandsworth, they can offer advice, for instance to maximise your income, help you navigate the benefits system, and identify any additional grants you could be entitled to. If needed, they’ll issue you with a food bank voucher so you can get an emergency food parcel from your local food bank.
3. Get in touch with us
If you haven’t been able to get through to the local or national helplines above, please call or email our food bank. We can talk through your situation and try to help.
How to exchange your voucher for emergency food and support
The person referring you to our food bank will ask you which one of our six local welcome centres is most convenient for you to collect food and essentials from. This is where you’ll find a warm welcome, pick up the food you need, and find further support. You may want to bring a shopping trolley if you have one. Please bring your voucher code or voucher with you if possible.
We offer a limited number of home deliveries each week for people who can’t get to our welcome centres because of disability or ill-health (please ask the person referring you about this, if needed).
When you visit us (or when we call you to arrange a delivery if needed), one of our volunteers will go through what food you need. We can provide a range of longer-life food, including vegetarian and gluten-free, plus any extra items you need like toiletries, baby milk, nappies and baby wipes. We are usually able to provide some fresh fruit and vegetables too.
Foodbank Advice Project
If you’re not already receiving advice around what’s causing hardship, we can also offer free advice and support from our Foodbank Advice Project.
This is face-to-face or phone advice from one our kind and expert Foodbank Advisers, who can help you try to resolve urgent problems with issues like rent arrears and debt (including Council Tax debt), as well as checking you’re receiving all the benefits you’re entitled to (for instance Council Tax Reduction, Personal Independence Payments).