Tower Hamlets Food Bank

Items particularly needed at the moment:

Tinned meat and fish, sponge puddings, rice puddings, custard, tinned fruit and men's toiletries.

There are Food Banks across the country which are part of the Trussell Trust. Tower Hamlets Food Bank was launched in November 2010, and St Paul’s Shadwell has been closely involved since the start.

The Food Bank provides food parcels for people who do not have any food, by working with frontline agencies such as GP surgeries and children’s centres. These agencies have vouchers that they can give to people that they identify as not having enough food, and the people bring the vouchers to a Distribution Centre where they will be given food for 3-4 days.

 St Paul’s Shadwell is one of the Distribution Centres, and runs its sessions on Tuesdays from 1.30-4.30pm. Volunteers provide the visitors with refreshments and sit down and talk to them to get to know them and to find out why it is they don’t have any food. This enables the volunteers to then point them towards other agencies who can help with the longer term problems causing the lack of food.

The food is collected by donations from churches and businesses, and from supermarket collections where members of the public are asked to buy an extra item during their shop to give to the Food Bank.

If you are interested in volunteering, either at the Distribution Centre or with Food Collections or Sorting, please email the Foodbank Office.

For more information about the Tower Hamlets Food Bank please check their website.