A FOODBANK serving Fordingbridge, Ringwood and Verwood has seen a dramatic rise in the number of people it is supporting with demand “getting worse”.

Ringwood Foodbank says figures from the financial year starting April 1 show that 2257 people have been provided meals and the charity is expecting this demand to continue as people struggle with the rising cost of living.

Chair of trustees at Ringwood Foodbank, Chris Lee said: “This year so far we’ve provided food – three meals a day for three days – for 2257 people.

The same period last year was 1239 so that’s an 82 per cent increase.

Although, we have provided some food to Ukrainians that doesn’t account for the huge increase.”

He says the rise in demand has been “getting worse” over the last couple of months.

From August 1 up until September 26 the foodbank provided around 763 people with food. For the same period last year that figure was 371.

Chris says he is “absolutely” expecting this demand to continue. “As the cost of living crisis is hitting people very hard we’re unsurprisingly getting increased demand. The other challenge unfortunately is stock. Our stock levels are right down,” he added.

The charity is continuing to appeal to the public for support and to donate food and money if they are able.

Similar rises in demand have been experienced in Salisbury. In August, it fed 745 people – which was up from 321 during the same period last year.

Salisbury Foodbank manager Maria Stevenson said: “We gave out almost two tonnes more stock then we took in during August. This winter will be the biggest challenge in our history.”

 

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