WESTBURY Area Network (WAN) had a very busy 2023 – and the festive period proved to be a particularly busy time for their food bank with their volunteers handing out over 1,300 food parcels within the area by the middle of December.
WAN provides the food bank service in Westbury and the neighbouring villages directly through the charity, and WAN’s volunteers work with Westbury Town Council to run the community fridge and the Abraham’s Kitchen school holiday meals initiative.
“This is the busiest we have been since the difficult period during the Covid lockdown in 2020,” says the group.
“Despite having a very busy year, we have been very fortunate that during these difficult economic times, we have been supported with generous food donations from local supermarkets, businesses, churches, schools and many local people. During this year, we have also started to source frozen food that we can offer to families using the food bank, to enable them to have more variety.
“Also, we have been successful in obtaining grants to support our service and many organisations and individuals have been generous in making monetary donations. Without that support, it would be impossible to continue providing the service that we do. We are also very reliant on our volunteers who do a wonderful job of collecting the donations, packing the food parcels and, where necessary, delivering them.
“The trustees at WAN would like to thank all of those who have supported us over the past year to continue to deliver this service, particularly against the economic times that exist.
“The community fridge has also been very busy this year. We have developed very good relations with local supermarkets and receive donations of food, which would otherwise go to waste, and offer it to the general public locally in order to cut down on that waste. The food that we collect is mostly bakery items but, during 2023, we have increased significantly the amount of fresh fruit and vegetables available. In the first ten months of this year, the fridge received over 7,500 individual visits and we have recycled in this way about a tonne of food every month.
“As a relatively new organisation, we have tried to increase people’s awareness of our work. This is both in terms of people who may be in need of our services and also those who may be willing to support us in whatever way they can. This also applies to looking for potential new volunteers who might be willing to spare a few hours a week to support our work. For example, during this year, we have had a presence at the very successful Soap Box Derby, Chilli Fest and Christmas fair at the Christmas lights switch on.
“We have recently relaunched our website, www.westburyareanetwork.org, which now allows people to make donations and allows referring organisations to make referrals to us online.
