Skip to main content

Food bank supremo Emma Revie: ‘This is the best job in the world – and it shouldn’t have to exist’

The Trussell Trust gave hungry Britons 2.5m food parcels in the last year. A million were for children. Its CEO talks about the failure of the benefits system, the strains of the pandemic – and her awe at the people who step up to help

Among the shiny glass and steel riverside developments in south-west London is a huge shed. It used to be Currys PC World; people still wander in looking for a washing machine or laptop. But now it’s full of food – donated food stacked in crates and plastic boxes.

I’m meeting Emma Revie, the CEO of the Trussell Trust, the network that supports more than 1,200 food bank centres around the UK, including this one. Revie, 45, volunteers here at Wandsworth food bank as well as running the umbrella organisation. There are also about 900 other independent food banks in the country. Food banks in the Trussell Trust network distributed 2.5m food parcels in the year to April 2021 – a third more than in the previous year. A million of those were for children.

Continue reading...

from The Guardian https://ift.tt/3wLKsnq

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

England booed off after failing against Iceland once more in Euros warm-up

It was a long way from being the triumphant Euro 2024 send-off for Gareth Southgate and his England players at a sold-out and increasingly fretful Wembley. Never mind the result because it was not the main thing, however much it stirred memories of you-know-when against Iceland. It was the performance that raised the difficult questions, the worst one for quite some time and at exactly the wrong time. The home fans, thousands of whom made for the exits before the end, were forced to watch the second half – from about minute 55 onwards – through the gaps between their fingers. And it had not been great before that. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/4ndfQL0

Manchester City in title driving seat after cruising to win at Leeds

The title stare-off becomes steelier with each week. Elland Road was at its raucous best and a highly motivated Leeds played well enough to ensure Manchester City rarely neared full stride. Nevertheless the leaders mastered the situation, showing they can win via set pieces when means of higher aesthetic merit elude them. Rodri and Nathan Aké proved the point with goals in each half, garnished later by Gabriel Jesus’ sixth in three matches and a Fernandinho daisycutter, and Pep Guardiola’s delight at the outcome was obvious. This had been a possible banana skin, with the potential leveller of such a highly charged atmosphere; instead City cruise on and Leeds, who are in genuine danger of going down, must seek more viable routes to safety. This encounter had an edge from the outset. It needed to, because the heat had been turned up on both teams. City would have expected Liverpool to achieve what was necessary at Newcastle; Leeds might not have banked on Burnley’s turnaround at Watford...

Bins ‘overflowing’ in parts of England as Covid hits collections

Staff sickness in areas including London, Gloucestershire and Somerset leads to waste services being scaled back Coronavirus – latest updates See all our coronavirus coverage Bins across parts of England are reportedly “overflowing” with rubbish from the festive period due to Covid-related staff shortages. London, Gloucestershire, Somerset and Buckinghamshire are among the areas where councillors have warned that bin collections are being scaled back because of staff sickness. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/3qIHK0C