VA small line of people has formed in front of the “Everyday Church”. A mother is standing there with a pram, a group of women in thick winter jackets, several men in sweatpants.
A guy in his thirties with tattoos laughs out loud. They are waiting for the Foodbank (board) in the center of Kingston near London to finally open.
Karina, 19, is also waiting with a friend. You came from Ukraine five weeks ago as a guest student. “Everything is so expensive here,” she says. So here they are, waiting for free food at the blackboard.
Behind her, a homeless man is biting into cookies. Others confirm that they are very hungry and have not eaten since the day before.
As soon as the door opens at 11am, they all flock to the old stone chapel. There is first a warm coffee and later a large bag of free groceries.
“Our customer base is up 157 percent this year,” says Ian Jacobs, a tall, gaunt man who has been running the food bank for the past year. “We’re seeing a sharp increase in the needy,” he says as he packs bread and pastries into clear bags.
Expensive groceries
Food prices in the UK have risen by 16 per cent this year – a little more than in most other European countries. The whole island is also moaning about soaring gas and electricity bills, which have practically doubled to £2,500 per average household.
For many, the money is no longer enough. More people than before are therefore turning to the panels. The Trussell Trust, the umbrella organization for the 1,300 food bank centers on the island, speaks of a “tsunami of need”.
The plaque opens at Kingston’s Everyday Church.
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Image: Philip Plickert
Kingston on the Thames, a small town southwest of London, is actually not a poor place. Many wealthy citizens also live here, working in banks, law firms or ministries in the capital; the houses in some streets cost well over a million pounds.
In the center, next to the Gothic Church of All Saints, the Bentall department store and the Everyday Church, the Christmas market with fake snow on the huts is being set up, where you can buy punch, cookies, trinkets and all kinds of gifts. The mood is cheerful.
“But there is also a lot of hidden poverty in Kingston,” says Tanya van Dalen. Her charity, Growbaby, collects second-hand clothes for toddlers, toys and strollers for families who don’t have enough money. “All living expenses have increased exponentially, especially things for those at the bottom of the income ladder,” says the 47-year-old.
There are teddy bears in the window of the Growbaby club, next to boxes of powdered milk. Hundreds of parents come to her every month, and she has been able to help more than a hundred mothers with baby equipment. There are now almost 50 Growbaby charities across the UK.
Large influx at the panels
Kingston’s food bank serves approximately 300 to 500 people each week. Ian Jacobs holds up a list of the usual rations: cereal, milk and juice, two soups, two cans of beans, mashed potatoes, pasta, rice and sauces, canned meat and fish, a packet of biscuits, jam, toilet paper and toiletries are for the customer”.
All food comes from private donors, some from local supermarkets. As a rule, the food bank only admits people whose need has been checked by the employment office, school or a doctor and who can present a corresponding certificate.
Between April and September they have already distributed 1.3 million packages of food to those in need, more than ever before. In Germany, too, more and more people are going to food banks to get free food packages. Recently, the German umbrella organization reported that they had helped people with food packages two million times – a 50 percent increase this year.
Many of the German food banks are completely overloaded. And everyone is expecting a further increase when more people than before feel the rise in energy prices even more in their wallets in autumn and winter.
