Volunteers have seen a 14% more households depending on food deliveries in just the first week of November.
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00:00All right, look. Any beans?
00:04Yep, just two thins.
00:06From top boy...
00:07I know London.
00:08To top volunteer.
00:11Netflix star Ashley Walters swapped the streets of London for the isles of Canterbury Foodbank
00:16and it's all to tackle the increasing demand on the charity and the increasing pressures
00:21on families that usually wouldn't rely on a foodbank.
00:25During the pandemic, a foodbank opened in our local church. And, you know, on the street
00:32we live on, it's quite well to do, you know, there's like people, you assume people have
00:37got money to support themselves. But during that period of time, we saw some of our neighbours,
00:42you know, queuing up at the foodbank and it really woke us up to the fact that actually
00:49no one's too far away from being in that position if something like that happens.
00:54In just the first seven days of November, more than 200 parcels have been sent out and
01:00that's already up by more than 14% compared to this time last year. More than half went
01:06to children.
01:07This is also linked to education in a strange way because if kids are not eating or struggling
01:14to eat or have got parents that are worrying about them eating the next day, then they're
01:19not focusing on homework, they're not focusing on, do you know what I mean, being in the
01:23right frame of mind for education. If you don't have breakfast in the morning, you go
01:26to school, you are not thinking about maths, you're thinking about when I'm going to eat,
01:30do you know what I mean? So this issue branches out into a lot of other political issues that
01:35we're having at the moment. So to fix this would help ease the pressure on some of the
01:39other things that we've got going on as well.
01:41Including government cuts to winter fuel payments, impacting pensioners. It's another reason
01:46why the foodbank have launched a winter campaign now ahead of Christmas, with a reverse advent
01:52calendar.
01:53The idea to put a different item in a bag every day of November, so by that busy Christmas
01:59period that can be a really difficult time for a lot of families, they have a full bag
02:03of essential items. And today, on day seven, it's a tin of beans.
02:09But the government says this dependence is unacceptable, so it's extended the household
02:14support fund, increased the national living wage and is developing strategies with the
02:19Child Poverty Taskforce.
02:21But on a busy day for the foodbank, up to 50 new inquiries will come in. That's 50 new
02:26families who are making that choice between heating or eating.
02:31I think there was a time when foodbanks were considered to be the organisation of last
02:35resort. But we find now that people are coming to us almost immediately, are being signed,
02:41will be appointed to us by other organisations. So it would be lovely to live in a world where
02:48foodbanks were no longer necessary. But I don't see that happening any time soon. And
02:54as I say, we're prepared for really whatever the winter will throw at us.
02:59They're predicting to deliver nearly 3,000 parcels over the next eight weeks, while doing
03:04their best to reverse food poverty this Christmas.
03:07Abbey Hook for KMTV in Canterbury.