Wigan borough foodbank holds stall to promote new campaign focusing on guranteeing essentials

Members of the community were invited to the stand outside St John the Baptist Church to come and learn more about the Guarantee Essentials campaign backed by Atherton and Leigh Foodbank.

The campaign proposes that the UK Government reforms the current Universal Credit to allow everyone to afford the essentials, effectively stopping the need for food banks.

Services such as Atherton and Leigh Foodbank say that circumstances can change quickly, whether that be losing a job or caring for family and it can happen to anyone.

Warren Done, project manager for the organisation, said: “Here at Atherton and Leigh Foodbank we are seeing more and more people plunged deeper into poverty and coming through the doors of food banks.

"In the last 12 months we provided 3,428 emergency food parcels helping feed 7,355 adults and children to local people who couldn’t afford the essentials.

"These statistics are reflective of the picture across the UK as the Trussell Trust recently announced that their network – of which we’re a part – distributed almost three million emergency food parcels between April 2022 – March 2023 – the highest number on record.”

The Trussell Trust has launched a petition in hope of getting party leaders to commit to ensuring that everyone can afford the essentials we all need to get by as the current rate has people facing crisis.

People can sign it by following this link.