Outbreak forces food bank to close ‘distribution cafes’

The pandemic is impacting vulnerable people living in food poverty. Canterbury Food Bank, which gave out more than 33,400 meals in the last year alone, has decided to closed its “distribution cafes” over virus fears. Services such as Age UK and Citizens Advice give food vouchers to those in need, to use at the charity’s four weekly “cafes” in Canterbury, Herne Bay and Whitstable. They can pick up bags of food, like tinned vegetables, pasta and juice, containing enough for about nine nutritionally balanced meals.

But chair of trustees Martin Ward said the tough decision to close the distribution points was made in an attempt to ensure the food bank could continue to operate as the Covid-19 crisis develops. He said: “The trustees believe that by taking these prudent steps now, they have a robust solution to maintain the viability of the service. “We would rather not be in this position, but we have a duty of care to our clients, volunteers and staff and we have no wish to place any of them in harm’s way unnecessarily. “Each of our four distribution cafés requires a minimum number of volunteers to ensure they operate safely and even with a large volunteer force, we are currently unable to guarantee this. “As soon as it is deemed safe to do so, normal service will be resumed at the four weekly distribution cafes.” While the cafes are closed, emergency food parcels will still be available from other agencies such as Age UK and local churches that usually issue food bank vouchers. Mr Ward urges people to donate jars and tins of food, where possible, to food bank collection bins in supermarkets.

He says the food bank is also in urgent need of donations of hand sanitiser.

If you haven’t received a parcel from the food bank previously and wish to self-refer, email signposting@canterburyfoodbank.org

Bags of provisions at Canterbury Food Bank