Coventry Foodbank fundraising trek as donations drop | News

The founder of Coventry Foodbank said it had seen a sharp drop in donations from the public.

The founder of Coventry Foodbank says he is struggling to get enough donations as he organizes a 34km ride around the city’s 15 food banks.

The annual Great Coventry Foodbankathon raises money for Coventry Foodbank as well as raising awareness of the role foodbanks play in supporting the people of Coventry.

Founder of Coventry Foodbank, Canon Gavin Kibble MBE, said: “The most fundamental problem we face is not the number of people we feed – that’s pretty static at around 23.00 – it’s actually a decline huge increase in the level of donations from the public and I think this is a direct impact of the economic crisis we are going through at the moment.

“We’ve had to buy over half the food we’ve been giving away in the last four months – it’s so unusual.”

The Foodbankathon, starts at St Stephen’s Church in Canley and finishes at St Catherine’s Church in Stoke Aldermoor and is expected to last around nine hours. Members of the public were invited to join the walk along the way.

Gavin said: “We’ve been doing this for 13 years and it has become part of the social care infrastructure of this city for the almost 250,000 people who have benefited from it over that time.

“There are over 300 volunteers invested in the city supporting foodbanks and there’s nothing like the Coventry Foodbankathon to celebrate the time, the energy of the work they put in.”

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