Hungry children have been given emergency food packages during the school summer holidays, it has emerged.
Benefit sanctions and the additional strain of summer holidays on parents’ wallets have seen the use of food banks in Fife rise dramatically, with the facilities having to hire extra staff to cope with demand.
Young families have been particularly badly hit, and having to provide childcare and an additional meal each day means the summer holidays can be the busiest time for food banks.
The revelation with Fife children to return to school on Wednesday after seven weeks off comes as the Scottish Government announced over half a million pounds in funding for food banks across Scotland, and £500,000 for food charity FareShare.
Mary Hill, who runs the food bank in Glenrothes, said: “The emergency food fund is a great idea. It’s particularly important in the summer when families in need have to provide an extra meal every day for every child.
“Food banks often deal with marginalised and vulnerable people and they need our help.”
Fiona Findlay from Glenrothes foodbank said: “We always need more funding, but we also need to put more money into prevention, that’s the real agenda.
“We’ve definitely seen a bigger uptake in the summer holidays; we’ve handed out more than 100 food parcels this month.
“It’s definitely harder for families to make ends meet in the summer holidays because there are no breakfast clubs or school lunches, they have to find food for those extra mouths.”
While over £500,000 will help emergency food services across Scotland, the East Neuk Food Bank is the only Fife-based food bank to benefit from the money.
The East Neuk Recovery Group Initiative (ENeRGI) liaises with a food bank at Cellardyke Church at Anstruther and was awarded £10,000, which it will use to hire a part-time member of staff to help deal with demand.
The part-time staff member will work with the food bank, supervise the delivery of food parcels to needy people and help out at the charity, which helps food bank users with a variety of problems.
Elaine Fox, manager at ENeRGI, spoke about people who have become dependent on the food bank.
She said: “Food banks ought to be an emergency service, used once in a difficult time, but because of benefits sanctions and other problems we have a small core of people using our services who use them every week.
“The sanctions are difficult to deal with one person who needed food had been sanctioned for six weeks because he was two minutes late for an appointment.
“This is why we set up the advice line; the people who can’t afford food usually have trouble with gas and electricity bills as well.”
Bill King, manager of the East Neuk foodbank, told The Courier: “We’ve been busy since the second we opened.”
The East Neuk foodbank has delivered 1,302 food packages to 250 individuals and families since opening on April 2 2013.
Mr King said: “The money will be vital to help signpost people to the right agency. We always try to fix the problem of food poverty rather than just hand out food.
“Everyone who comes to us, we make sure to speak to them and understand why they need our help.”
Elaine Fox said the goal of the charity was to work assertively against the causes of food poverty, as well as the symptoms.
Picture by George McLuskie