The hunger stalking our streets
Foodbank Canterbury is a lifeline for more than 100 social organisations providing food parcels to the needy. Yet its request for state funding was rejected. Vicki Anderson reports.
Every day Dr John Milligan receives heartbreaking messages from hungry people. ‘‘Hungry people are not on the street, they are in your street,’’ the chief executive of Foodbank Canterbury says.
‘‘They are the people you see at the bus stop, walking the dog, or maybe it’s your neighbour.’’
Covid-19 has made things harder for many. People who have never asked for help before are asking for help now, Milligan says. ‘‘Our resources are really stretched.’’
The organisation he runs with his wife, Janice Milligan, delivers the equivalent of 9000 meals to vulnerable and at-risk people mainly in Canterbury, South Canterbury, and the West Coast every day.
Last year, it distributed about
30 to 35 tonnes of food a month. Now, nearly 100 tonnes of food that would have otherwise gone to landfill goes out to the community every month.
New Zealanders throw out about $870 million worth of food every year, or 122,547 tonnes (about 10,212 tonnes a month).
Before Covid-19, Foodbank Canterbury received individual pleas for food just four times a week – now it’s more than 30 times a day.
One tradie and his wife were sharing a peanut butter sandwich for tea so their four kids could eat. Milligan says he burst into tears when the man told him he’d never asked for help before, but needed it now.
‘‘They moved down here for work, Covid-19 hit and work has dried up.’’
At the foodbank’s headquarters, Milligan gently stacks loaves of bread on top of one another as Janice requested.
Outside, she organises an army of volunteers from
125 social organisations in Canterbury. A representative from each holds a number from
1 to 20 as they wait to load the rescued food into vans and car boots.
The increased level of demand means the foodbank has had to adapt. It’s collaborating with the Ma¯ ori support service He Waka Tapu and Rotary International to form Hunger Action Teams, helping source and package family care parcels.
Each parcel provides a ‘‘foundation of staple products’’ so a family of four can prepare enough meals for 10 to 14 days.
The Government allocated
$57m this year to boost food and welfare assistance provided by local authorities and Civil Defence Emergency Management (CDEM) groups.
It included $30m for organising food parcels and other household goods and services to those who contacted the CDEM Group and met the relevant criteria, which included foodbanks.
Foodbank Canterbury applied for CDEM funding but was denied. Milligan says a welfare manager told him the 100 tonnes of food his organisation delivers each month is totally irrelevant.
‘‘We were declined for funding because we weren’t the direct providers of food to people in need. We provide the food to all the organisations now receiving funding from CDEM. Where does the CDEM, and the minister for that matter, think the food comes from?’’
CDEM Christchurch acting head Swantje Bubritzki says Foodbank Canterbury provides a significant service in distributing goods to community foodbanks, but does not supply food directly to people in need.
He adds that Milligan’s funding request was to establish a new initiative called ‘‘community pantries’’.
‘‘Although we saw merit in the community pantry proposal, reinforcing existing structures at the time seemed to make sense.
‘‘Funding foodbanks directly allowed them to pay service providers such as Foodbank Canterbury, which operates as a food-rescue organisation,’’ Bubritzki says.
Milligan says at the time of the grant allocation, Foodbank Canterbury was supplying more than 120 agencies in the Christchurch area with ‘‘around 90 tonnes of food per month’’.
‘‘Foodbank operates as a food relief organisation . . . all services and food resources are recovered, sorted and distributed to the agencies at the 100 per cent cost to Foodbank Canterbury. There is no cost and never has been any cost associated with this effort to the agencies at all.
‘‘Nothing is recovered by Foodbank Canterbury. If the council granting body was led to believe this by the agencies it funded, the information is incorrect and in our opinion, should be further investigated.’’
He says he wrote to Christchurch’s mayor and city councillors about the funding issues, but received a response from only one, councillor Anne Galloway.
Foodbank staff and volunteers worked ‘‘tirelessly’’ throughout the pandemic, but their efforts aren’t being recognised by funders, he says.
‘‘I’d love to know why the largest per volume food relief organisation in the South Island is not at the CDEM table or just even consulted.’’
On November 30, a spokesperson for the Government’s National Emergency Management Agency, Te Ra¯ kau Whakamarumaru, said they would provide, in a ‘‘few days’’, a detailed breakdown of how the $30m dedicated to the organisation of food parcels during Covid-19 had been allocated.
This information had still not been sent by time of publication.
Foodbank Canterbury is a member of the Global Foodbanking Network. In 2018, it won the Westpac Business Champions Supreme Award for Small Enterprises and it also holds a Christchurch Civic Leadership Award.
It started five years ago with ‘‘15 rescued sandwiches’’.
‘‘Now we are the largest food relief organisation maybe in New Zealand – we are definitely the largest in the South Island,’’ says Milligan, a former high-flier with IBM, award-winning poet, author and an opera singer who has performed around the world and shared the stage with Dame Malvina Major.
‘‘In turn, we also distribute quality surplus product to other food rescue organisations throughout the country. [We’re] using food as a tool to combat hunger and build communities.’’
Foodbank Canterbury also has full-time sub-hubs in Timaru and on the West Coast.
‘‘We get resources from supermarkets, bulk products from manufacturers and farmers, we have phenomenal vegetables from the Corrections Department at the men’s prison once a week. But we are still 28 per cent short on demand.’’
Volunteers trained in food safety check the food, then box it up and distribute it to representatives from 125 charities daily.
‘‘Foodbank represents a triplewin for our communities –
‘‘I’d love to know why the largest per volume food relief organisation in the South Island is not at the Civil Defence Emergency Management table or just even consulted.’’
Dr John Milligan
reducing food wastage and protecting the environment, providing food relief to hungry and vulnerable people, and strengthening our society through collaboration with local charities and volunteerism.’’
The foodbank will close between December 23 and January 6 to enable workers to have a ‘‘much-needed break’’ over Christmas.
‘‘Our staff are on minimum wage and do this because they are passionate about it.’’
Milligan himself worked unpaid for five years. ‘‘My board has always budgeted for my salary but I’d rather that money go to put someone else on the floor . . . only in the last few months have I managed to take a small wage,’’ he says.
‘‘It’s about getting the food out to the people who need it the most, not an ego trip or a moneymaking trip.
‘‘We do know the food we get in is not meeting the phenomenal demand . . . we can buy what we need to make up that difference if we had funding.’’
Foodbank Canterbury’s next focus is ‘‘rural communities’’.
‘‘We are well established in urban areas, but we need to get more help into the rural communities – people there are really hurting,’’ Milligan says.
‘‘We know there is a lot of hunger out there, a lot of hurt out there, in the current Covid-affected climate. We are trying to fill that need and get the food out to the people and keep it out of the landfill.’’