Surge in requests for food as COVID-19 hits vulnerable

Malta Trust Foundation sets up Food Aid Project

The Malta Trust Foundation has set up a Food Aid Project with the support of the business community after it received an overwhelming number of requests from disadvantaged families who are among the worst hit by the coronavirus economic crisis.

Foundation head Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca said: “During these critical times, it is very disturbing to receive so many requests for food from families and unfortunate individuals. We are also getting appeals for help from people who call us in tears because they are unable to pay their rent and are very scared they will become homeless.”

The Foundation’s team and volunteers yesterday started distributing boxes of food, which have been generously donated by businesses.

Ms Coleiro Preca said the boxes of food were going to those who were already struggling in normal times to feed their families adequately, and others who have inevitably suffered a loss in income due to the current economic circumstances caused by COVID-19 and are struggling to make ends meet.

The Malta Trust Foundation has also been asked to support some NGOs with food supplies as their resources are overstretched in their efforts to cope with the increasing number of people coming forward.

Ms Coleiro Preca, who is also Eurochild president, said it was of even greater concern to realise that so many children were being negatively effected by the current extraordinary circumstances.

She appealed: “We must do everything possible to ensure child poverty does not increase on our islands. It is of overriding importance that we give priority to our children, otherwise the poverty this generation will suffer will spill over into the decades of their lives that follow.”