Foodbank plea for Monday evening volunteers
Stratford Foodbank is appealing for more volunteers. The town’s foodbank will open a fourth distribution session in November on a Monday evening and needs additional help to extend their service.
Foodbank Manager Marion Homer said,
“It’s a very sad fact that the numbers using our Foodbank continues to grow – we have experienced 70% growth in food parcel distribution since 2016. We already offer three sessions, but our trustees have decided that a fourth session is now necessary. The Foodbank exists to support those who find themselves in a short-term crisis and over 80% of our clients visit us two times or less. This extra session will start in November and will run every Monday 5pm – 6.30pm.
“We are hugely grateful to over 100 volunteers who regularly help, enabling us to bring this service to our town. However, we anticipate that this new session will mean finding more volunteers so we are starting a volunteer recruitment drive now. We will need volunteers to help collate our food parcels, to meet, greet and chat with our clients, and some very special volunteers to act as team leaers to oversee the distribution session. Full training will be provided and there is plenty of time between now and November to try a few sessions before making a longer term commitment.“
The foodbank are looking for volunteers for the following roles:
- Box Packers -to collate our food parcels- click here for box packer role description
- Frontline volunteers – to meet and greet our clients, check vouchers etc – click here for volunteer frontline role description
- Front line team leaders – to oversee our Monday distribution sessions -click here for full team leader role description
Stratford’s Foodbank operates from a porta cabin situated on Tesco’s carpark on the Birmingham road. Session times are Tuesday 12 – 2pm, Thursday 5 – 6.30pm, Friday 12 – 2pm, and, as of November, Monday 5 – 6.30pm. The Foodbank works in partnership with many organisations in Stratford who refer clients using a red foodbank voucher. Clients attend a distribution session and present their voucher in exchange for three days’ worth of emergency food. Food parcels can be made up for a single person, a couple or any size of family, and dietary requirements are catered for.
Parcels contain a nutritionally balanced range of tinned and packet food as recommended by the Trussell Trust.
Anyone interested in helping the Foodbank on a Monday evening, or indeed at any time, should refer to our ‘Give Help’ page or email [email protected]
