Wolverhampton food bank feeling the pinch, but still there to help families

It has also ratcheted up the pressure on food banks across the region as their already stretched resources have been put to the test by the increase in demand.

The Well in Wolverhampton has been running for 17 years, having started out as a room in a church supporting 69 people and now supporting more than 69,000 people, including families and people affected by the cost of living crisis across the city.

This has included people who live in some of the more affluent areas of Wolverhampton, such as Codsall and Tettenhall Wood, and more than a third of those referred to the Well are children and young people aged 16 and under.

Co-founder and manager Gary Price said he hadn't seen the situation like the one the food bank had been facing for a long time.

He said: "We've been running 17 years and, at the moment, the stocks are very low. I've not known it to be like this for a very long time as there are a lot more food projects in the city and people are feeling the pinch with prices doubling and tripling, so people are finding it hard to support food banks.

"We're probably only getting about a third of what we used to get in terms of donations, so we've had to reduce our parcel sizes and how much we can give out."

The Well, which was awarded the Queen's Award for Voluntary Service in 2021, works on a referral basis, with people being referred to it from organisations such as the Good Shepherd, children's centres, Job Centre and Citzens Advice, then spoken to by members of The Well and plans put in place to help them.

Mr Price said the demand was all year round, but said it would begin to increase during the school holidays, around the third or fourth week, and said it was sad to see people struggling this way in 2023.

He said: "When the school holidays start, we find that a lot of families are coming to us around the second or third week and more parcels are going out as families are not getting access to free school meals and thing like that.

"It's very sad as a lot of places are doing breakfast clubs and some schools are doing things to help families, but it's very sad in this day and age that the need is so great."

Mr Price said the level of demand for help had left The Well with more going out than coming in, with more bare spaces on the shelves in the warehouse than at any time in the past 17 years, and this had led to having to limit the parcels.

He said: "We have a cut-off point every day of up to 30 families a day and we probably could do more, but we can only take in so much because of the amount of food we have.

"We're finding that people need more help and the main thing for us is that we need people to donate food and that's the main thing for me. If people can donate what they can, it will help us to help the people we work with.

"Right now, we need donations for pretty much everything but pasta and beans, which we have loads of, but we are really low on everything, including toiletries and nappies, and we've started giving out kettles and crock pots, so we could do with those as donations."

Mr Price said it was getting harder to provide help and spoke about the calls he would take from people who were struggling and were desperate.

He said: "We get a lot of people phoning us directly and crying over the phone, embarrassed to be going to a food bank and how they have children and can't feed them, which is horrible for them.

"I've learned how to gauge what we can give out and I've mentioned the maximum that we can do, but we can also refer them to the Good Shepherd and some of the other food banks in the city and we try to communicate around with them.

"We're finding that we are now delivering to people in more affluent areas, such as Tettenhall Wood, where there are lots of middle class families and we would only occasionally go there, but we're now going there a lot."

Despite the struggles The Well is facing in terms of supply and demand, Mr Price has remained upbeat and said the charity would always be there to help people.

He said: "We are here for you and that is what the food bank was set up for as we want to help people as much as we can and if they are struggling, we will give them a food parcel and support them."

To find out more about the Well and to make a donation, go to thewellwolverhampton.co.uk