Foodbank Donation of Advent Calendars and Selection Boxes

Saddleworth Rotarians were warmly welcomed by Andrew Barr, the manager of the Foodbank and Helen Proctor, one of the volunteers. After the formality of handing over the goodies and the photographs, we spent a few minutes talking to Andrew about how the Foodbank operates.

To summarise, there are 96 agencies such as doctors surgeries, school liaison officers, social services and housing associations which are allocated vouchers by the Foodbank. When they come across a case where a person or a family are at a crisis point, they can allocate vouchers. Each agency has to provide some detail on the voucher about the people involved and their circumstances. This information is used to help ensure that only genuine cases are supported. In addition it also helps the Foodbank to identify any trends in the needs of people in the community. This information is then fed back to Oldham Social services to support their effectiveness.

The agencies  and Foodbank will only provide support to people who demonstrate positive behaviour. For example, it will not provide food to habitual drug addicts so they can spend their spare cash on drugs. However, if a drug addict is in the process of rehabilitation and needs support during this process, then help will be provided.

The Foodbank gets a lot of support from the local Tescos and Sainsburys around Oldham. Lidl and Aldi do not support this charity. As Christmas approaches, there is a big drive to get foodstuffs into the Foodbank. The donations see them through to February when stocks become a little low.