Rye’s food bank has seen a 38% increase in the number of adults and children needing food, says its annual report for 2017, reported in St Mary’s church magazine, The Pendulum. Over the past year the food bank fed 618 adults and 411 children.
“It is great to see members of different churches working together helping families in need,” says Gillian Garrett. “This was very evident on the last food bank before Christmas when we fed 66 people – a very busy afternoon indeed.
“The last year has been a busy one, seeing an increase in the number of families needing to use the food bank,” she said. “This can be for many different reasons, changes in Universal Credit [the new Government welfare scheme] being one of the main causes.
“However we have more and more families coming to us who are on a low income and just cannot manage. We cannot see this improving especially for those families where the main breadwinner is on a zero-hour contract.”
One reason for the increase may be, she said, that “the agencies are at last issuing food vouchers more regularly – the main one being the Citizens Advice Bureau held in Rye Library on a Tuesday.” Local schools are also issuing them more regularly which, she said, was a great step forward.
Photo: Rye News library