‘Many veterans were locked down with no-one to help’

A MILITARY charity is looking to reach out to veterans and their families across the Staffordshire Moorlands.

The Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Families Association, (SSAFA) are now urging anyone requiring support to contact them.

The charity aims to provide support and guidance to individuals and families of those serving or have served in any associated branch of the armed services in the transition from service to civilian life.

A spokesman said: “Since the Covid 19 pandemic started life has changed for us all and we found many veterans and families were locked down with no one to help them with shopping and day to day activities. Many of these had no means to buy food either, so a veterans food bank was formed in partnership with SSAFA.

“Currently we are supplying in excess of 40 food parcels per month. We have a small dedicated team which includes our own SSAFA case workers who are sourcing food from donations from the public, purchasing food from local supermarkets and now we have also extended our food sourcing network through Wendy Cotterill and Rich Stephenson-evans the Tesco Community Champions in South Cheshire and North Staffs.

“This has resulted in a major increase in available food stuffs that we can now enhance our offering to the needy and vulnerable.

“In the last month we have seen a significant increase in demand for the food parcels. Some of this increase is through more of the SSAFA cases coming online. The others have come from furloughed individuals trying to make ends meet, some are those whose benefits have been stopped and some have had a delay in them restarting leaving them with no money to purchase food and basic items.

“Fortunately we own a minibus that we use to collect and deliver our food and when delivering parcels we stop and visit several lockdown individuals as a welfare check, often talking to them through their kitchen windows and leaving them with a small parcel of ‘treats’ to enjoy with a brew.

For further information visit facebook, www.veteransupportcentre.org or call 01782 713963.