Without the charity’s nationwide network of food banks, hundreds of thousands would go hungry
At the risk of sounding ungrateful, the Trussell Trust, Britain’s largest food bank network, isn’t entirely thrilled at having won OFM’s Outstanding Achievement for 2017. “Obviously, awards can be quite difficult, can’t they?” says Mark Ward, the charity’s interim CEO. “It’s like when we reached 300 food banks – you can’t celebrate that because it’s terrible.” He shakes his head, “Well, it’s terrible and it’s not terrible because it means now there are 300 places where if somebody’s struggling they can go to. So we wish we didn’t have to do it, but it is lovely to have recognition of the service that has been put in place.”
The Trussell Trust was founded 20 years ago by Christian humanitarians Carol and Paddy Henderson, initially to help the 60-or-so children sleeping rough at the Sofia Central Station in Bulgaria. In 2000, while fundraising in their hometown of Salisbury, the Hendersons began to realise just how many people were going hungry closer to home. The Salisbury Food Bank opened, in their garden shed and garage, not long afterwards, offering three days’ of emergency supplies for locals who were experiencing a short-term crisis.
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