Our Cambridge office has chosen Cambridge City Foodbank as one of our local charities and we have made a donation of £15,000 this year and a commitment to contribute the same next year.
By June 2023, the warehouse received nearly 67,000kg of food donations and distributed 79,000kg of food. This highlights the deficit the Foodbank is facing. Our donation will enable the Foodbank to provide the equivalent of approximately 1,224 three-day emergency food parcels.
Cambridge City Foodbank is part of a nationwide network of foodbanks combatting poverty and hunger across the UK. The organisation provides three days’ nutritionally balanced emergency food and support to local people. In addition to their distribution centres, they have two Fairbite social supermarkets, which give people the opportunity to afford food for themselves and their families all for a small membership fee. Arbury Court Fairbite averages 280 visits per month and Hope Fairbite averages 150 visits per month. This shows how many people in the local community rely on the Foodbank for support.
This is why it is important to us to help support this charity in making change so people do not have to suffer in our society. The Foodbank is supporting the Guarantee Our Essentials campaign pushing for the basic rate of Universal Credit to be increased so that it is enough to afford the essentials.
Members of our Cambridge office went to visit the team at the Cambridge City Foodbank warehouse. They gained an insight into how the charity functions and discussed how we can help by setting up an in-office food collection to donate to the Foodbank and a Tesco volunteering day.
"On behalf of everyone at Cambridge City Foodbank, I would like to say a huge thank you to Mewburn Ellis for its incredibly generous donation. It is no secret that the ongoing cost-of-living crisis is having a significant impact on people across the city, and we are experiencing levels of demand that would have been unimaginable just a few years ago. This year, we have run at an 12,000kg deficit in terms of food donated vs food distributed, but the support of businesses such as Mewburn Ellis will help us to ensure that no one in Cambridge has to go hungry."
- Steve Clay, CEO of Cambridge City Foodbank
Cambridge City Foodbank not only provide food parcels to their visitors, but they support the overall welfare of their visitors too. They have recently partnered with Cambridge Citizens Advice which provides visitors with free financial advice, access to fuel, housing and other benefits. Within four weeks of the partnership, advisors from Cambridge Citizens Advice supported 34 visitors and provided access to around £11,500 worth of benefits.
“We’re delighted to be supporting Cambridge City Foodbank. Food insecurity is an ongoing issue in the UK and with Cambridge being one of the highest cost of living cities in the UK it is extremely difficult. Our people chose this charity for the Cambridge office and it’s important to us that we help support the local communities in which we operate.”
- Maria Hall, Community Champion at Mewburn Ellis
