A mum-of-two cried down the phone to volunteers at a food bank as she was so desperate for help.
She had been put on furlough and couldn't make enough money to feed herself and her two children, aged around seven or eight.
The volunteers from Vernon Place Community Hub, Briton Ferry, reassured her and invited her down to collect a pack of essentials to see her family through the week as she awaited to be put on universal credit.
"When she got out of the car, her children saw one packet of Jammie Dodgers and said, 'Look mammy, we can eat now!'," said Rachel Best, a volunteer at the hub.
"That was about half way through the pandemic and I still get choked up now thinking about it. It shouldn't be like this."
This is just one example of the many people and families helped by Vernon Place during the pandemic.
The not-for-profit organisation started in January, 2020, and after just two months operating pre-pandemic, volunteers said they noticed a "complete change" in the type of people reaching out to them when lockdown hit in mid-March.
Tracey Johns, a trustee and driving force behind the hub, said that before lockdown, the majority of people coming to her had been people who had found themselves in long-term poverty - many of whom were claiming government support and relied on places like Vernon Place to help them make ends meet through the month.
"Since the start of the pandemic we've mainly helped people who have lost their jobs and have never been on benefits before or have had to claim support from the government," she said.
"Many of the people we have helped never thought they would need help like this before." Tracey said this included some people who had been put out of work because of the symptoms of long covid, the name given to the ongoing affects some people suffer after having coronavirus.
"In one of the families we've had to help, a man has been off work for about 12 weeks now and they think he has long covid. He has the type of [physically demanding] job where he can't go back to work and so the family just have one wage coming in. He's only on statutory sick pay and is in the process of applying for universal credit, but because of how universal credit works, they don't know if they'll be able to get it. You can't claim it if you have already had a certain amount of money that year.
"Because they have not had to claim benefits before and are not on the system already, they do not qualify for the £500 grant either. It's been very eye-opening. I never thought we'd ever be helping half the people we are helping now."
Tracey said that because of this shift, she had noticed more people say they felt embarrassed or conscious of the fact they were unable to support themselves and had been forced to seek extra support from a food bank.
"And I tell them they have no reason to feel embarrassed. They are not in that position due to any fault of their own. It's people who are self-employed or are on zero-hour contracts. They've had no income and they've been seeking food packs from us every week."
Vernon Place Community Hub is located in the former Llansawel Primary School, which closed in summer, 2018.
At the time, Tracey was a school governor and when news came that the school might be torn down, she could see an opportunity to save the school and turn it into something meaningful for the community. The hub also offers a range of community services including support for veterans, friendly phone calls to help the lonely, children's activities and, through the pandemic, virtual entertainment such as singing streamed on social media.
"There weren't many places in the area for the community. There were sports clubs and things like that, so we thought there was room for this kind of service - offering crafts and drama as well. I just thought they can't pull it down - The building is over 100 years old. We put in our business plan and ended up getting the school."
Find out about food banks in your area:
Tracey said she and the other trustees couldn't do much with the school for a while because it was reserved for educational purposes only.
However, once that rule lifted, they had the keys in summer, 2019, and after some months of planning and preparation got the hub up and running in January, 2020.
"It started up as a small food bank - it was literally just a walk in cupboard," she said.
"We maybe created one or two parcels on the weekend to help people out. Then we went into Covid and we had to start helping people affected by the pandemic."
The trustees, along with volunteers and local councillors, formed a group to be able to apply for grants and bring help to their local community.
"We started doing deliveries of fruit and veg to people who were isolating and they could give a donation if they wanted. That was in the first lockdown. Then when that finished there was such a demand that we carried it on - but people pay for it and that money goes straight back into the hub. We don't make profit from it."
Meanwhile, the food bank grew and grew, meaning they could help even more people struggling in the pandemic.
"It went from being a walk-in cupboard to filling our whole hall. Then it outgrew the room we had it in and we split another room up so it can continue to grow out there."
For the donations, Vernon Place uses Fareshare Go which gives the group supplies on Tuesdays.
They also have donations from Morrisons in Baglan, which provides them with supplies that haven't been sold in time - though are still in perfect condition and would otherwise go to waste.
FareShare is a national network of charitable food redistributors, made up of 17 independent organisations.
They take good quality surplus food from right across the food industry, such as from supermarkets, and pass it on to frontline charities and community groups like Vernon Place.
Both Tracey and volunteer Rachel said that although it had been upsetting seeing some of the situations the pandemic had put people in, they were also touched to see how thankful the community had been.
Rachel said: "People have been really grateful. We have seen people who we previously helped when they were struggling financially or isolating who now also donate or offer their time as a way as saying thank you. Luckily the food bank has been a blessing to them."
