STAIRFOOT Foodbank fed 147 people with the help of food parcels on a recent Friday.
That’s despite receiving no funding and being solely run by volunteers with main volunteer Dawn Whiteley often having to put up to £90 fuel per week into her own car to collect surplus food from local supermarkets.
Based at Ebenezer Wesleyan Reform Church on Hunningley Close, the foodbank started during the Covid pandemic and Dawn and a small team of volunteers have been working hard to support their community ever since.
“It’s mainly me with help from a few volunteers particularly Cath Winder and Alison Jones. It’s become a full-time, unpaid job for me.
“At Christmas we provided a hundred hampers everyone got a present, all the kids got pyjamas, two toys and a selection box.
“It’s hard work we hold car boot sales and have a coffee morning alongside the foodbank on a Friday to raise funds to buy the things we don’t get from the supermarkets.
“We mainly support working people who are struggling.
“We’re really hoping to be able to get some funding next year but up to now we have hit a brick wall.
“We desperately need a van but just can’t afford it.”
The foodbank was nominated for a Proud of Barnsley award by a local primary school after pupils got involved in helping out as part of a classroom project.
Year five students at Outwood Primary School at Darfield first started working with the foodbank as part of their learning diploma focusing on the local goal of ’No Hunger’ and the school has since established excellent links with the initiative.
The Proud of Barnsley nomination from the school said: “This has given us an insight into what they do for the local community, how it is all voluntary and how they use their own expenses to ensure the families of Darfield are fed.”
