Chance for this generation to end need for food banks

We stand at a once-in-a-generation crossroads. Recently a thought-provoking poem, ACCEPTABLE? by the Anonymous Mother – judged for needing a food bank to feed her child – started a nationwide debate about whether the world’s fifth richest country should need food banks to feed children.

This conversation needed to happen as our food bank crisis has become critical.

Last year, food banks in the Trussell Trust’s network handed out 980,000 emergency food parcels for children in the UK. This surely cannot be acceptable.

However, fate has given us a rare opportunity, as history shows us that the best time to create a brighter future is after times of great darkness.

The pandemic has been the most devastating event to hit our country since the Second World War, but it also brought out the very best of our nation. We recognised our real community heroes, we protected the vulnerable, we didn’t stand by when children went hungry.

But now, as we prepare to wake up from the pandemic nightmare, millions of British families still cannot afford food on their table.

As the Anonymous Mother poetically says – it doesn’t need to be this way.

This pandemic has been our generation’s darkest hour. This is now our new dawn, our choice. I urge you to do just one thing today and that is to seek out the poem that started all of this and reflect. If, afterwards, you agree with me and the hundreds of thousands of other supporters of the Trussell Trust, that we can do better, join us as we collectively create a ‘hunger free future’. Len Goodman, supporter of the Trussell

Trust.