MP’S festive hampers for needy
SWANSEA is so blighted by food poverty a city MP is gearing up to deliver 100 festive food hampers in the countdown to Christmas to help hard-up families to get by.
Carolyn Harris, MP for Swansea East, raised the issue in Parliament as her Brynhyfryd office acts as a food bank to those in need.
She raised fears over the knock-on effect of Universal Credit and called for a halt to its roll-out.
Mrs Harris said: “My constituency of Swansea East is particularly blighted by food poverty, we have four food banks and a further six across the rest of Swansea.
“My office operates a makeshift food bank, where my staff give food parcels to constituents who have come for advice on issues such as Universal Credit, ESA and working tax credits.
“In the summer of 2017, I was at a family fun day within the constituency to mark the first weekend of the school holidays.
“I received a call from Eastside Food Bank, in Bonymaen, who had almost entirely run out of supplies due to increased demand that day.
“Between myself and a number of local figures at the event, we managed to put out an emergency appeal for donations and within a week Eastside Food Bank had fully stocked shelves, which sadly went back out just as quickly as it came in.
“Reflecting on this, it became evident that this sudden demand for families to visit the food bank was due to the lack of school meals over the summer holidays.
“Families living hand to mouth throughout the year, many of which are in work earning low incomes, become dependent on free school meals to provide their children with at least one hot meal a day.
“If you have three school-age children receiving free school meals, you will find yourself having to provide an extra three meals a day, an average of 90 extra meals over a summer holidays.
“This number increases if the children are attending school breakfast clubs too.
“For the past two summers I have organised the Swansea East Kids’ Lunch Club, which provides packed lunches to children attending free swimming sessions, and hot meals to children at a number of community centres.”
She said in the space of just two years, she had provided around 10,000 meals, which she and her staff would not be able to serve up without the support of a network of companies including Admiral, Arvato, Boss Brewing, Coastal Housing, Morrisons and Warburtons.
Mrs Harris said she was concerned about the number of working families needing the support of food banks and how some were skipping meals completely.
“There are parents choosing between feeding themselves and heating their homes,” she said.
“During the summer, working families are visiting food banks to make up for the loss of school lunches. Christmas is also a time when families struggle to make ends meet.
“This Christmas I am organising for 100 food hampers to be delivered to those in need around Swansea East, each containing the ingredients for a Christmas dinner and some festive treats such as mince pies and biscuits, a luxury that most of us take for granted each year but those who are just about scraping by can only dream of.
“When you think of Christmas dinners being served in church halls, you picture homeless people, people without a family to spend Christmas Day with.
“St Stephen’s Church, in my constituency, has put on a Christmas Day meal for the past two years, single mothers and their children being among those that attend, unable to provide this meal for their children themselves.
“The community spirit we see day in, day out, during these times of austerity are all well and good, but it breaks my heart to think that there are currently children in my constituency going hungry. Families are having to rely on the charity of others, because their wages aren’t enough to cover the cost of living.”