The IOW Foodbank

Isle of Wight Foodbank provides emergency food and support to local people in crisis.  This is achieved through the public donating food either at Collection Points or Supermarket Collections.  Food is then sorted and distributed to the Distribution Centres.

There are collection points for the Foodbank at St Peter’s, Shorwell and St Mary’s, Brighstone.  The foodbank urgently needs: long-life milk, pasta sauce, coffee, custard, sponge puddings, tinned fruit, tinned potatoes, tinned spaghetti, tinned tomatoes and squash.

More Information about the Foodbank from Rusty Adams (Foodbank Office Manager)

The IW foodbank has been running for over three years now, during which time local need has caused it to grow from working out of little more than a cupboard, to setting up a warehouse at Somerton and then moving to the former Love Lane Primary School site in January 2014.

We operate under the umbrella of the Christian charity “The Trussell Trust”, which has introduced a well-structured mode of operation. The system uses a voucher scheme, with vouchers being issued to clients by a whole range of “professionals” in the community ranging from schools, the job centre, doctor’s surgeries, church ministers, health workers and social workers etc.

Each voucher gives the client three days worth of food for the family, and clients can general only have three vouchers in any six month period – the reason for this is that we supply food to those in “crisis”, not for those with long term problems – in this situation they are passed onto other agencies.

The IW foodbank is almost 100% reliant upon voluntary donations and about 200 volunteers, who are highly valued and without whom we could not operate. The donations we receive are both of food and money – the money goes towards enabling the foodbank to operate, covering costs that include the warehouse site and the van, and all the food goes to feeding clients in need through seven Distribution Centres set up across the Island. Food donations come from a range of donors, and churches play a  significant role in this provision for which the IW foodbank is hugely grateful.

There is also a clothing and textile side to the foodbank – items of clothing and other textiles are donated to the foodbank – these items are sorted into those which can be made available for others, and those that are not reusable are set aside for collection by a ragging company, which pay the foodbank by weight so nothing is wasted. Items of clothing are given away to those in real plight (often social workers come an request this), but generally donations are made for items, which again help with the running costs of the site. Textile bins can be requested by any group that want one, and these are usually kept on the local site for about two weeks, before being collected by us.

We at the IW foodbank thank all at the Five Churches for their support, and we pray that the fellowship will be able to continue to support us.

For further information about the Isle of Wight Foodbank please follow this link.