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South Belfast Foodbank is TEN years old!

24th October 2024

The beginning continued…. By Brenda Johnston (SBFB Volunteer Agency Coordinator)

Hitting the 10 year mark in October 2024 gives us a chance to look back and share a bit of our beginnings. We continue sharing stories of how the SBFB began life with a take from one of our current volunteers:

In May 2014 I found myself in a room in City Church with Bruce and four other people who had a heart to set up a foodbank in South Belfast. I have to admit that at the time I knew very little about foodbanks but the strange sequence of events that saw me in that room could only have been by God’s hand.

It was a rather steep learning curve but other foodbanks were very helpful. I will always be indebted to Dundonald foodbank for their patience and generosity with me as I attended their foodbank many times always with a barrage of questions.

The most obvious next step was to source food. Trussell advised that we needed two tonnes of food to open. Having no idea what that would look like we set about clearing, cleaning and painting a room in Mornington Community Project ready to store the food. This was along with all the necessary paperwork, hygiene requirements etc to be able to operate.

In July we participated in our (and Tesco Newtownbreda  and Tesco Lisburn Road’s ) first Tesco Neighbourhood Collection. We had recruited willing volunteers to stand with us for three days surrounded by a big green balloon arch holding shopping lists, encouraging shoppers to buy an extra item to donate to our collection. We were totally overwhelmed by the generosity of people when so many shoppers did indeed buy that extra item and many quite a few extra items with even some shoppers giving full trollies of food to us. We were very emotional many times over those three days and continue to be at every collection we do. Our two tonne target was blown away when we found we had collected over four tonnes.  This completely filled the room we had prepared from floor to ceiling! Consequently we set to clear, clean and paint another room. Next came the dating and sorting – needless to say a little team of us didn’t see much daylight that August!

Slowly but surely we were getting nearer to opening, tablecloths and little vases of flowers bought to make the cafe area look inviting. Possibly this seemed a bit unnecessary at the time but oh, how many times did people come in and say, “This is lovely, I was worried about coming here but it’s so nice.”

Behind the scenes we had also been contacting, explaining the vision and signing up various organisations to become Referral Agencies. These were churches, schools, MLAs, health professionals, charities and organisations who would be in position to issue foodbank vouchers to those in need of emergency food. From that initial handful, currently we have 170 different organizations who partner with us in this way.

Meanwhile we were also recruiting volunteers to make a team to run the face to face sessions. When we first all met to go through the training it really started to feel real. Then reality began.

Our first shifts were fairly quiet, as with all new ventures, it takes time for word to spread, especially as at that point foodbanks were not really heard of. How different that is now!

I do remember one of the first visitors needing food, he was an asylum seeker, a very humble man and embarrassed to be asking for food. I asked if there was anything else we could help him with. He said he was a mechanic, well qualified and experienced but his paper work was not accepted here so if I could help to find any courses that would be helpful. We looked up various courses and he left looking so hopeful.

How sad it was that many months later when in conversation on another visit, that he seemed so down and viewed himself no longer as (let’s call him Ali – not his real name), Ali the mechanic but Ali the beggar. That was my first learning of how long and demoralising the asylum process was.

There were many other much more successful outcomes when the team was able to not only provide the much needed food but to also link up the person with other avenues of help and if appropriate offer prayer.  How wonderful it was when someone called back in with us and told us what a difference those links had made.

The teams of volunteers were another revelation as we had retired people, students, those between jobs, asylum seekers and any others with time they wanted to give all working together, finding their role in their teams. Whether that be packing the food behind the scenes, making and serving tea or talking 1:1 with the visitors.  It was great to see people find a new purpose in their lives after they had retired and to see others gain confidence and skills to move on to paid work or other volunteering opportunities, others are still volunteering 10 years later.

The foodbank continues to be my mission as I work behind the scenes  through all its changes and evolutions over the years. Our aim always being to end the need for foodbanks, but meantime striving to provide the best service we can.

 

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