I was pleased to have the opportunity to visit the Dundee Foodbank on Monday morning along with MSPs Jenny Marra and Claire Baker. Based at the Full Gospel Church on Constitution Street, Dundee Foodbank is a registered Scottish charity committed to providing emergency food relief to individuals and families experiencing financial hardship.
It was good to see at first hand the inspirational work they are doing to help folk in Dundee who are struggling to put food on the table. They provide a minimum of 3 days emergency food and support to local people in crisis who have been referred for help.
It's an unfortunate fact of life that such a project should be necessary, but out of the misfortunes they address, there are many pockets of hope including the generosity of our fellow citizens donating food and many volunteers freely giving their time to collect, sort and distribute food parcels. For example, earlier this month generous customers at Tesco in Dundee donated 2.27 tonnes of food with an estimated value of £3800.
During the visit I was pleased to advise Foodbank Staff that the Council had approved a £25,000 grant for the Foodbank from the Common Good Fund. Labour Leader Kevin Keenan had brought this forward to the Policy and Resources Committee on Monday 12 December and this had been unanimously supported and approved without a vote. I hope this will mean that the Foodbank's planned development of a distribution point in the East of the city can come on stream a bit sooner than might otherwise have happened.
Contact the Dundee Foodbank
Telephone 01382 226372
Website http://dundee.foodbank.org.uk/
