My garage, the food bank
Volunteers forced to cut their hours as they return to work – but food crisis is still there
Friday, 7th May 2021 — By Dan Carrier
Naomi Russell
A YEAR ago this week, Naomi Russell started asking friends and neighbours to bring donations of food and other household essentials to her Highgate home.
She didn’t know when she volunteered to help gather vital supplies for food banks at the height of the first lockdown that she would find herself 12 months later at the centre of a food programme helping more than 8,000 households each week.
But she has now overseen the distribution of over £1.6million worth of food to people in north London. Marking the anniversary of Food Bank Aid – a project that sources, co-ordinates and supplies donations – Ms Russell told the New Journal that with restrictions lifting, they have seen a 10-fold increase in demand but a tailing off of donations and volunteers.
She said: “The pandemic has caused real hardship and affected a broad range of people. We have seen families who have usually been in good financial health find themselves in circumstances they would never have imagined.
“People have lost jobs but still have a mortgage to pay. It is unusual for two people in a household to be made redundant – but we have seen that happen regularly.”
The easing of restrictions has meant volunteer help had been lost as people return to work and feel life is beginning to return to normality.
Ms Russell said: “Donations and volunteers have dropped dramatically recently. Everybody is excited to be able to go out for dinner – but people are still needing food banks. This problem has not gone away.”
