Still Hungry For Change – event Thursday 14th July
Hungry for change! We believe access to healthy and nutritious food should be a right and not a luxury for the few.
An event aimed at volunteers and organisations running food banks, food pantries and providing community meals/takeaways, breakfast and lunch clubs will take place on Thursday 14th July 9.30-12.30pm in Hull city centre at Jubilee Central on King Edward Street.
Book your place here: Still Hungry For Change! Tickets
The event is being organised by Hull Food Inequality Alliance (HFIA), a city-wide group made up of charities providing food aid, Hull Food Partnership, Hull CVS/Forum, The University of Hull and public sector and city councillors.
The event aims to bring together community food aid providers to share learning and information, and to provide support regarding accessing food aid and funding opportunities.
Karen Taylor, Hull Food Inequality Officer who co-ordinates the alliance, said:
“In May 2022, considering the anticipated impact of the cost-of-living crisis during the winter months, which will affect many thousands of Hull households significantly, and recent drops in community food aid supplies, the HFIA decided that we needed to make an emergency community food aid plan. Included in this emergency plan, is a funding and information event being organised with and for community food aid providers. Although the work community aid providers currently deliver is vital and has a multitude of health and wellbeing benefits for people accessing their services, HFIA recognises that the current model of community food aid is not a sustainable or a morally acceptable solution to addressing poverty in the long term.
Instead, we believe people should have sufficient income to buy enough food of their choosing. To this end, like countless national anti-poverty charities we will continue to advocate for benefits rates to be increased in line with inflation, for a real living wage, extending nutritional safety net schemes such as free school meals, healthy start vouchers and advocating for the adoption of a ‘cash first’ approach by relevant organisations when opportunities arise to do so.
We believe access to affordable, healthy, and nutritious food should be a right and not a luxury for the few. For these reasons, following Liverpool and Sheffield, we are also advocating for Hull to become a RIGHT TO FOOD CITY. Food is a basic need, and like housing and healthcare, requires legal protections and safeguards to ensure people get the food they need to support good health and wellbeing.”
The funding and information event on the 14th July, is part of a series of Hungry for Change events organised by Hull Food Partnership between 2021-2023. Please contact Food Inequality Officer karen.taylor@rootedinhull.org.uk if you have not already received an invitation and would like to attend.
In addition to these events, Hull Food Partnership is currently undertaking consultation with people with lived experiences of food poverty which will help the development of a Food Poverty Action Plan for the city. We want to take a grounded, people first, and asset-based approach to our work, by celebrating what people are already doing with very little and look at how we can build upon this.
This year we are also running a pilot project called “Grow it Forward” with Hull Delivery Co-op and a community aid provider. The basic idea is that if you have surplus yields from your allotment, community growing area or private garden is that we will arrange for it to be collected and taken to a community food aid location. Some of the food may be made into a cooked meal or given directly to people as part of a food bank offer. If the project looks like it could work, growers may choose to put an additional bag of potatoes for instance in their plot the following year. We realise and deeply empathise with many struggling households, that this may only make a small difference, but we must try to do what we can where we can. We hope lots of small differences we can make as communities, charity groups, and by the council, could add up to making a bigger difference. Let’s see what we can do together.
If you would like to donate food, you can do so at Hull Food Bank, Warehouse, 28 Paragon Street, Hull, 11-2pm (Monday, Wednesday, Thursday & Friday) and at most supermarkets and other local food banks.
If you are struggling now or worried about money, please contact:
The Trussell Trust free national helpline, Help Through Hardship, on 0808 2082138 for free (open Monday to Friday, 9am-5pm, closed on public holidays) to talk confidentially with a trained Citizens Advice adviser. They can help address your crises and provide support to maximise your income, help you navigate the benefits system, and identify any additional grants you could be entitled to. If needed, they’ll issue you with a voucher so you can get an emergency food parcel from your local food bank.
Hull and East Rising Citizen’s Advice Bureau: For specialist debt advice please call: 01482 226 859. For all other advice please call: 0800 144 88 48. For email advice use: e-advice@hull-eastridingcab.org.uk or for residents registered with a Hull GP: enquiries@ConnectWellHull.org.uk
There are limited drop-in sessions available at the Hull Office, but please be aware that these only operate on Mondays and Fridays from 9.30am to 4pm and you may have to wait for a long time.
Hull Office: The Wilson Centre, Alfred Gelder Street, Hull, HU1 2AG
Also check out our Nurture Hull website for more info about places you can go for food aid support in Hull.
If you are an organisation supplying food aid to people in Hull, we want to hear from you!
Please tell us who you are and what you are doing by completing the online form here.
We are also gathering evidence on the pressures organisations are facing as the demand for food aid in Hull increases, please help us by telling us about your experiences in the online form here.