National World launches Trussell Trust winter fundraiser

In cities, towns and villages across the UK, from Stornoway to Sussex, Blackpool to Banbury and everywhere in between, the rising cost of living pushes people to crisis.

You have to make the most difficult of choices. Parents don’t eat enough to feed their children, pensioners don’t turn on the heat because they can’t keep warm, and people with disabilities are stuck in their homes because they can’t afford affordable transportation.

The Trussell Trust is a charity with a network of over 1,300 food banks across the UK. You may not have noticed them in your community, but with 40,000 volunteers who work tirelessly around the clock to ensure that people suffering from hunger can get the food and support they need. They are a safety net that catches people struggling to survive.

This winter will be the hardest for food banks as they face a tsunami of need and dramatic operating costs, and they cannot respond to this crisis alone – they urgently need your support.

The charity’s long-term goal is a future without emergency food, where everyone has the income and support they need to live, but right now they are focused on making sure everyone has access to food.

Every penny raised from the Trussell Trusts emergency appeal will help food banks continue to operate this winter by funding:

Emma Revie, chief executive of The Trussell Trust, said: “People are struggling to afford the essentials and we expect this winter to be the toughest yet for food banks and the people they support.”

Almost 1.3 million emergency food parcels were provided to people between April and September this year by food banks in the charity’s UK network, with almost half a million of these going to children. In the same six months, 320,000 people went to a food bank for the first time in the Trussell Trust network, a 40 per cent increase on the same period last year and the equivalent of everyone in Nottingham having access to a food bank.

Revie added: “The community continues to be generous with their donations, but the need for food far exceeds what we need now. Food banks are having to buy twice as much food as last year, and that, combined with rising operating costs, is making it difficult for them to continue operating.

We know that the generosity of our audience knows no bounds and that we, as a community of readers and journalists, can really make a difference this winter.

One in five people who visit a food bank come from a working family, and hunger is an issue that can affect us all. No doubt we’re all feeling the pressure, but we hope that in the coming weeks you can spare no effort to Trussell Trust Winter Appeal.

Our family has newspapers, we are aiming to raise as much money as possible to support this vital charity this winter. The money raised will go directly to food banks so that anyone who needs help this winter gets it.

Your money will be the difference between a family in your community eating and a family in your community going hungry. That’s how important this address is.