FOOD banks are experiencing their busiest ever Christmas with ‘unprecedented’ demand for services and a drop in donations amid the cost-of-living crisis.
And worryingly, one service has said they are seeing an ‘awful lot of first-time customers’ in full-time employment.
The Salvation Army, St Vincent de Paul and The Grace Trust all run food banks for those most in need.
Dominic Egré, of St Vincent de Paul, said he had been shocked by the increase and that the number of people they were seeing had ‘effectively doubled’.
Mr Egré said: ‘I’d say about 50% of the people who come in are the regulars, people who are out of work or have severe learning difficulties, but at the moment we’re seeing an awful lot of first-time customers. About a quarter of the people who we are seeing are currently employed and have never needed to use anything like this before.
‘We are seeing a lot of employed carers coming in, particularly. We are providing the service for people who provide the service. It’s just insanity.’
He added: ‘This is something that’s completely new for Jersey. I’ve never seen it like this before over here.
‘It’s a challenge to get my head around the difference between the richest and the poorest over here.’
Patrick Lynch, chief executive of Caritas Jersey, the sister charity of St Vincent de Paul, added that they had experienced a drop in donations.
He said: ‘General donations have dried up hugely, as people just have less to go around.
‘At the food banks, it used to be the case that one bag of food in ten was provided for by public donations, with the rest coming from reserves. Now that number is one in 52. While the person on the street can’t give as much, philanthropists and philanthropic organisations are meeting the need.’
Alice Nunn, a captain in the Salvation Army with more than ten years’ service who runs the local branch, said there had been a surge in the number of visits to the food bank this year.
He said: ‘In the whole of last year, people used our services 1,040 times. This year, we’ve helped people around 1,700 times and it’s not even the end of the year yet.
‘You just have to go food shopping to see how much harder things are getting for people.’
Earlier this year, it emerged that carers and hospitality staff were among the growing number of employed Islanders turning to food banks as they struggled to cope with the rising cost of living.
