Food banks and soup kitchens pledge to help each other near Northampton

The Northamptonshire West Emergency Food Alliance is taking new measures to support people in need in Northampton, Daventry and South Northants.

The group - which operates typically as a campaign group - has broadened its remit during the Covid-19 outbreak to boost practical action should businesses close, isolated people not have access to food and panic buying leads to further stripped shelves.

Some of the groups among the alliance include the Hope Centre, Emmanuel Foodbank, Re:store, Shop Zero, the Sikh community and Earths Lonely Angels.

Robin Burgess, CEO of the Hope Centre, said: “In this unprecedented crisis, where people are being laid off everyday and have no money to buy food, fear and worry and uncertainty adds to the reality of hunger.

"Northampton, Daventry and South Northants food aid providers have formed a practical alliance to work together for mutual support, sharing of food and resources, and to provide distribution of food at increasing levels to the equally increasing number of people in need.

"We need the support of the food industry to source food at scale, both cooked and as ingredients, to support these people.”

Some of the services put on by these groups already include soup kitchens, street-based food distribution to very vulnerable groups, lunch clubs, children’s holiday provision, foodbanks and social supermarkets.

Since the coronavirus outbreak - the groups say they have been faced with new challenges - including their volunteers who are over 70 going into self-isolation.

They are now putting their heads together to share food supplies, volunteers, find storage space to feed those in need and absorb any new people offering services, but acting alone, into their network with a common cause.