Sam Hanson has been managing Portsmouth Food bank for two-and-a-half years. The food bank, which runs in three sites across the city, is part of the Trussell Trust’s network of more than 1,300 food bank centres across the UK.
How many volunteers do you have?
We have around 30 in total, which works out at approximately 10 a session – they generally do different days. We have volunteers who help support people using the food bank, volunteers in our warehouse who help to sort the food, and people who collect food for us from schools and supermarkets.
How many people typically come in during the day?
It’s quite unpredictable – it can be anywhere from about 20 to 80, so on average probably about 40 a day.
Is it the same people each week?
We try to help people out of crisis, and the idea is that once they’re out of crisis, they remain out of crisis. However, some people do need support again. We see people more on a monthly basis than a weekly basis. Probably half the people that we serve come back more than once. People don’t want to need our support, but it’s often the only option while they work through their hardship.
Do you make food parcels for people, or do you let them choose the food themselves?
Because of the volume of people we’re serving, we generally make it up for them. We always take into account religious requirements or allergies. We also tend to add in other things. We get lots of toiletries and pet food, and we have a partnership with FareShare – we pay them a subscription and they bring us enough fruit and veg to last a week.
How much food is there in a parcel?
It typically lasts three days. That’s based on a packing list, so we pack the same list every time. It’s nutritionally balanced, so there are about 20 or 30 different lines we put in – beans and soup and veg and all that sort of stuff.
What kinds of people do you see, and what are the circumstances that have led to them needing a food bank?
There’s a whole host of reasons that people come to us, but predominantly it’s around debt or low income, whether that’s because of changes to benefits or they’ve lost a job. People living with a disability or health condition, families with children and single parents are also groups of people who are most likely to need a food bank’s help, as the social security system fails to provide too many people with the income they need to afford food. There are also people who come to us who are homeless or may be fleeing domestic violence.
Are you able to help them in other ways?
People come to a food bank predominantly because they don’t have enough money to afford food, so that’s the first port of call. We always give them food, but we also have trained advisers who can help with budgeting advice or sourcing childcare support. There are many other services that can be of support to people, but they may just not be aware of it. We want to try to help them, and often we try to get to the root cause of what’s going on while they’re with us.
What are the highs of the job?
Probably knowing that you’re making a tangible difference to someone’s life. When people arrive, they’re hungry, they’re often uncertain and maybe a bit fearful, so you’re able to bring that immediate relief in the form of a food parcel, but also comfort and maybe peace as well through helping them to connect to other services.
What about the lows?
We know that the system that these people are in is fundamentally broken, and so you feel that you will be seeing a lot of the same people again and again. We are campaigning for the government to end the need for food banks by providing more local services that can help people in genuine crisis.
Are there any individual stories that stand out for you?
Just before Covid, a Romanian man came in who didn’t speak very much English, but we were able to get a translator. He had just lost his wife and he had three young children, and didn’t know where to turn. We were able to support him through one of our advisers – provide him with childcare support, with clothes, with budgeting support and of course food, and you could see the tangible difference we were making. And the success of that is that he hasn’t been back to us since. We love to help people, but we don’t really want to see them again – we want them to be able to help themselves. Knowing we made a huge difference in that person’s life was really good.
In the time you’ve been doing it has there been any increase or decrease in numbers?
We were sending out about 7,000 parcels in 2019. The figure from the start of the pandemic until now is just under 20,000 parcels, which has been a huge change. The two main categories of people we were supporting were small families – maybe one of them had lost their job – and single males. The main reason for that, we figured, was that there’s a lot of casual work with no real support in place. When the furlough scheme came in, they weren’t eligible for that and so they just lost their job.
Has anything else changed?
Throughout the pandemic, people have donated food to us, and given their time – people we’ve never met who send us an email out of the blue and come in and help, so that’s probably one of the biggest changes. The volume of food we’re giving out has also changed. We were giving out 25 to 30 tonnes of food in a normal year, and then from the start of the pandemic in March till July 2020, we gave out nearly 70 tonnes. Most of that food is donated, and we’re so grateful for people’s kindness.
