Help fight hunger in the UK
The Trussell Trust is asking you to help foodbanks stop people going hungry in the UK.
Yesterday was World Food Day, ‘a celebration of the founding of the lead international agency for global efforts to combat hunger: the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)’. The date has been observed every year since 1979, raising awareness of global poverty and hunger.
Across the world, people are working to fight hunger – and in Britain a charity called The Trussell Trust is asking you to help foodbanks stop people going hungry in the UK.
Carol and Paddy Henderson founded The Trussell Trust in 1997 with a legacy left by Carol’s mother, Betty Trussell.
The Trussell Trust’s initial projects, in Bulgaria, focussed on improving conditions for the 60 or more children sleeping at the Central Railway Station in Bulgaria.
But while Paddy Henderson was fundraising for Bulgaria in Salisbury in 2000, he received a call from a desperate mother in Salisbury who said her children were going to bed hungry that night – and asking what he was going to do about it.
He investigated local indices of deprivation and ‘hidden hunger’ in the UK, and found shocking results which showed that significant numbers of local people faced short-term hunger as a result of a sudden crisis.
Salisbury’s foodbank was started in the Henderson’s garden shed, and provided three days of emergency food to local people in crisis.
In 2004, the UK foodbank network was launched, and has been teaching churches and communities nationwide how to start their own foodbanks.
The Trust now runs a network of 270 foodbanks throughout the UK, with a new food bank being launched in the UK every three days. The Trust expects this growth to continue until 2015.
The network has fed almost 110,000 people since April, compared with a total of 128,697 in the whole of 2011-12.
The Trust says that 13 million people live below the poverty line in the UK, and 1 in 5 mums skip meals to feed their children.
And with a record number of people receiving emergency food from UK food banks in the last six months, The Trussell Trust is asking for your help.
Help by giving up something small for just one day – or a week – and donating the money you save.
It’s easy:
1. Choose something to give up
2. Decide whether it’s for a day or a week
3. Donate what you save by texting FBUK12 plus the amount – e.g. FBUK12 £10 – to 70070 or by going online.
