Coronavirus Cambridge: City foodbanks fear being overwhelmed

City food banks fear they could be overwhelmed by demands for food packs if many people lose their jobs due to the coronavirus outbreak.

People on zero hours contracts or freelancers may suddenly find themselves out of work, the charity organisers believe.

And the problems will be compounded when many of the elderly volunteers who keep the foodbank running are forced to self isolate for four months.

John Edney. Manager of Cambridge City Foodbank, said: “Our number one concern is that because of the shut down of so many businesses and services and so many people are self employed or are on zero hours contracts and on low incomes already, many people will be out of work. And this could cause a huge surge in the number of people who need to come to the food bank which is likely to occur at the same time that our number of volunteers which is currently 200 is probably going to fall back because quite a lot of our volunteers are more elderly and quite a lot of them are over seventy.

“So we could see a situation where just at the point where demand is growing fastest it could be the time when our volunteer force is struggling to provide the service.”

The charity is now asking for younger volunteers and people who believe they are at a lower risk of complications to step forward.

John said: “ We were contacted yesterday by a young woman who was in her 20s and because of her virus her freelance work has dried up completely and she has time on her hands so she offered to come and help us to run the foodbank, those are type of people we want to reach.

“We will be putting the message out on social media to say if you feel you are in a low risk group or that you have recovered, please consider giving us a few hours to get through this time.”

Volunteers are needed by the charity to man the food banks and hand out food, to sort food into packages at their warehouse and to drive the van delivering donations to the city’s foodbank centres.

John added: “A lot of people are concerned that we may run out of food but our even greater concern is we might run out of capacity to support the number of people who are likely to encounter need.

“For sure, there will be people already on a low income and struggling to get by who are going to get laid off. That will put them in a very difficult place.

“We currently operate from eight centres around cambridge. Six are in the city and then we have Waterbeach and Cambourne, which are open different days and on different hours. It is very likely that if we don’t have enough volunteers we will have to concentrate our efforts on a smaller number of banks in two or three locations around the city.”

To volunteer at one of the city’s foodbank visit https://cambridgecity.foodbank.org.uk/ and click the ‘Give Help’ tab.