Page 8 - SAF-SPDT Sept 22 - Copy

Health, especially mental health, is another problem
for many of the people SFB assists. Numbers of clients
have doubled again in the past year and SFB spending
on food has also doubled.

So we continue to be grateful for all food and financial
donations. It has been wonderful to receive fresh
produce from allotments and gardens - and a one-off
Swanage, like the rest of the country, has been gift of 6 boxes of potatoes from the Swanage Carnival
scorched in July and August, but under the sunny skies Committee. SFB clients benefit from fresh fruit and
is the darkening shadow of increased energy and food veg, bread and dairy as well as tinned and packeted
costs which will drive many households locally into items. Many of our neighbours would be under-
further poverty. Swanage Food Bank has joined with nourished and under-fed without SFB's assistance.
other local organisations' representatives, led by
Wellbeing Swanage to discuss the Cost of Living Crisis Please keep donations coming - baked beans,
in our community. Although it has been possible to breakfast cereals, spreads (savoury and sweet), tinned
identify 5 areas impacted by rising prices in Swanage - fish and meat, biscuits and crackers, dried pasta and
food, housing, energy, travel and leisure - they are so rice, and all desserts. Every item is appreciated. A
interconnected that none can be improved in newcomer to our Team wondered if we should give
isolation. sweets to families with children as 'not essential
food'. It's true, they're luxuries, but they give such
So Swanage Food Bank clients also face soaring gas pleasure to the young and to their parents who really
and electricity costs (which SFB can offer limited help can't afford them. So, if you slip into one of our Food
to pay) and transport difficulties (which SFB offsets Bins a packet of sweets or chocolates, think of the
with Home Deliveries where possible). Leisure little people you will be delighting. And thank you
activities in the past have provided employment , but from Swanage Food Bank for your generosity.
jobs are often so badly paid that clients consider
themselves better off on Benefits than in work. Pauline Werba, Chair SFB

Photograph by Gwenda Yeomans