Here to help and support.
Loaves and Fishes Foodbank
operates from St John’s Church Hall.
It supports up to 40 families with young children by giving them a large bag of non-perishable food every week of the year. The food is distributed on Thursday afternoons.
Loaves and Fishes Foodbank is an HMRC registered charity – XT36605. Fr Robin is one of the trustees.
Food is donated by churches of all denominations across the district. Local schools, other charitable organisations and small businesses also support this project as do many individuals.
We have recently changed our referral process in order to help people out of debt, maximise their income and reduce dependency. We now only accept referrals from partner agencies who have some knowledge of the financial circumstances of families. By doing this, families are directed towards other sources of help as well, such as debt counselling and benefit maximising in addition to the Foodbank. This is working well, especially with CAB and West Kent Housing.
Other agencies such as schools, churches, health centres, are now asked to signpost families to any one of the partner agencies.
We still provide an emergency basket of food so that no-one is refused help but we do ask the recipient to seek a referral in order to receive on going help if it is required.
Items currently needed are:
Breakfast cereals (but not porridge oats)
Tinned meat for hot meals: especially stewed steak, beef casserole/lamb stew, minced beef & onions, chicken in white sauce
Hot dogs
Ketchup
Tinned vegetables (preferably peas/carrots/green beans/sweetcorn)
Biscuits
Toiletries
Washing capsules or liquid
and also, in order of importance…
Fruit juice (long-life)/fruit squash
Sauces for rice dishes: curry/Sweet & Sour
Tomato ketchup/mayonnaise (but not brown sauce)
Tinned ravioli
Tinned macaroni cheese
Tinned meat for cold meals (eg ham, luncheon meat, corned beef)
Custard (tins or cartons, but not custard powder)
Rice pudding (tinned)
Coffee/hot chocolate
Rice
Sugar
UHT milk
[We have large stocks of baked beans, tinned tomatoes, tinned fruit, tinned soup, jam and honey. Our storage space is very limited, so instead of these items contributions from the list above would be most welcome, if possible.]