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"The news and social media can make it seem like the world is full of bad people, but the kind hearts, love and patience we see here is magical. It takes your breath away. Everybody who's been helping out, or doing collections, or giving even the smallest donations, together they're all making a huge difference. We both know that we could so easily be in our clients' shoes, it can take just 1 or 2 bad things happening to you, and it feels so good to be able to make a real difference to people's day-to-day lives. We're a Barnet-wide food bank which started as a very small and informal operation 8 years ago - just one cupboard and a handful of volunteers. It was growing slowly and then with the pandemic it went BOOM! Where we'd been feeding 30 to 45 families a week, now it's sometimes as many as 125 - which equates to feeding 450 people. That's why we're so grateful for all the incredible community support we've been given - not just the massive increase in volunteers (we're now up to 70), but all the people collecting in their street, or through their school, church, synagogue, business or sports club. Of course the organisational logistics are huge now too.
"Even though we're based in this church hall, religion is never, ever brought up. It's nobody’s business, and everybody’s welcome whatever your ethnic background or faith. Also, we don’t ask for any documents, vouchers or referrals to prove need. We've found that most of our clients are working, they're just not earning enough to get by. We always try to give at least three days' food. We’ve got a whole series of different bags - for 2, 4 or 6 people in the house; meat bags, fish bags, Halal bags, vegan bags, even no-cooking-facilities bags for some clients who only might have a kettle. We also have a Return System where if people don’t want something, they can bring it back so we can offer it to someone else. Last December we did a Clients Survey asking people what they liked and didn't like, how much was enough, and that helped us to whittle down the returns even more. When someone says, 'I think this will be the last time I’m going to need to come here', we're so delighted for them, because it means that they’ve found some security and they're moving on."
"The news and social media can make it seem like the world is full of bad people, but the kind hearts, love and patience we see here is magical. It takes your breath away. Everybody who's been helping out, or doing collections, or giving even the smallest donations, together they're all making a huge difference. We both know that we could so easily be in our clients' shoes, it can take just 1 or 2 bad things happening to you, and it feels so good to be able to make a real difference to people's day-to-day lives. We're a Barnet-wide food bank which started as a very small and informal operation 8 years ago - just one cupboard and a handful of volunteers. It was growing slowly and then with the pandemic it went BOOM! Where we'd been feeding 30 to 45 families a week, now it's sometimes as many as 125 - which equates to feeding 450 people. That's why we're so grateful for all the incredible community support we've been given - not just the massive increase in volunteers (we're now up to 70), but all the people collecting in their street, or through their school, church, synagogue, business or sports club. Of course the organisational logistics are huge now too.
"Even though we're based in this church hall, religion is never, ever brought up. It's nobody’s business, and everybody’s welcome whatever your ethnic background or faith. Also, we don’t ask for any documents, vouchers or referrals to prove need. We've found that most of our clients are working, they're just not earning enough to get by. We always try to give at least three days' food. We’ve got a whole series of different bags - for 2, 4 or 6 people in the house; meat bags, fish bags, Halal bags, vegan bags, even no-cooking-facilities bags for some clients who only might have a kettle. We also have a Return System where if people don’t want something, they can bring it back so we can offer it to someone else. Last December we did a Clients Survey asking people what they liked and didn't like, how much was enough, and that helped us to whittle down the returns even more. When someone says, 'I think this will be the last time I’m going to need to come here', we're so delighted for them, because it means that they’ve found some security and they're moving on."
"The news and social media can make it seem like the world is full of bad people, but the kind hearts, love and patience we see here is magical. It takes your breath away. Everybody who's been helping out, or doing collections, or giving even the smallest donations, together they're all making a huge difference. We both know that we could so easily be in our clients' shoes, it can take just 1 or 2 bad things happening to you, and it feels so good to be able to make a real difference to people's day-to-day lives. We're a Barnet-wide food bank which started as a very small and informal operation 8 years ago - just one cupboard and a handful of volunteers. It was growing slowly and then with the pandemic it went BOOM! Where we'd been feeding 30 to 45 families a week, now it's sometimes as many as 125 - which equates to feeding 450 people. That's why we're so grateful for all the incredible community support we've been given - not just the massive increase in volunteers (we're now up to 70), but all the people collecting in their street, or through their school, church, synagogue, business or sports club. Of course the organisational logistics are huge now too.