Thanks to the amazing efforts of our supporters and volunteers as we’re ramping up in response to lockdown. Accordingly, FareShare is delivering enough food to create almost 1 million meals to frontline charities in just 10 weeks.
Last year we delivered over 1,268 tonnes of in-date surplus food to 250 charities. These include school breakfast clubs, food banks and community centres – enough to create an incredible 3 million meals. We set out to match that this year, but the coronavirus pandemic has forced us to ramp things up even further. Since the lockdown came into effect, we’ve already delivered 397 tonnes of food – enough to create 938,524 meals.
Supporting our communities in response to lockdown
Demand for our food has sky-rocketed during the lockdown. We estimate as many as 51,000 people are now accessing our food each week. As well as fresh food, we’ve been supplying packets and tins. All to help charities, local authorities and other organisations create food parcels for those who are vulnerable or self-isolating.
One of these is Poplar Street Primary in Tameside, which normally uses FareShare food for breakfast and after school clubs but has been delivering food parcels to families.
Headteacher Iain Linsdell explains:
“Schools might have closed through the lockdown, but in many respects our partnership with FareShare enables Poplar Street Primary to become a different kind of community hub. Without FareShare, there would be hardship and hunger on a scale that we’ve probably never experienced in our communities, but through our partnership we’re able to reach our community, providing families with a weekly food delivery which stops them from having to go out to the shops and spend money they really can’t afford.”
Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham believes our support is vital in making sure we all come through the coronavirus crisis together.
“FareShare has done phenomenal work delivering food to charities and local authorities throughout our city region. The work of charities like FareShare will be critical to maintaining that support as we look to recover from this period and build back in a way that’s fairer and better for all.”
Thanks to our amazing volunteers
As we enter the start of #VolunteersWeek2020, we want to say a big thank you to all the fantastic volunteers. Especially those who are helping us get food out at such a critical time. These are tough times for everyone and it’s been heartening to see communities pull together as they have.
We need your help!
Research shows that it’s likely even more people will find themselves in hardship in the difficult months to come. We’re relocating to a larger warehouse to provide even more food to those who need it. But we need your help to fund our costs. Can you help us raise the £500,000 we need?
Look out for more news soon on how you can get involved in our response to the coronavirus crisis.
