Share Alike have reached a heartbreaking milestone in their short history – having dished out one million meals to desperate people living on the breadline in just five years.
The East Kilbride charity is now feeding almost 150,000 people a week’s worth of food, incorporating seven daily meals – their highest number ever recorded.
Levels of support have fluctuated since the community support organisation was founded with a handful of volunteers by Annmarie Campbell in 2019, but show no signs of easing off.
She explained: “Our previous peak was during COVID, after which we thought that the figures would go down, but with the cost-of-living and fuel crisis it has already reached these levels and is increasing constantly.
“Now, we are at the point that it is not always food but other parts of our community support aspects such as clothing, household essentials and well-being networks that people need.
“With the loss of winter fuel payments for a large section of the community this will soar even more.
“We do worry if we can keep it up which is why we have been appealing to local businesses to come on board.
“Catering and food manufacturers in particular always have surplus so would they come to an agreement with Share Alike to help people?”
Annmarie recognises that more and more people are unable to afford a basic nutritional meal and that is what her vital organisation does best.
“Yes we deal with such situations – not unlike food banks – but we don’t just hand folk a bag of tins, she added.
“We enable them to choose what they are going to eat.
“We know for many reasons people can find themselves struggling in a crisis situation and need a pack of basic essentials.
“However it is clear that they really seem to appreciate the ‘hand up’ process of the larder and café as opposed to the ‘hand-out’ system of food banks.
“We encourage them to take the ingredients for a basic meal, especially with fruit and vegetables which many have no knowledge of how to prepare.”
This reduces waste as the charity uses surplus food which has been donated from so many outlets and shows that Share Alike have got the process right while always making sure we always have fresh produce which is best for their physical and mental health.
Annmarie stressed: “We need to fill our shelves more on a constant basis as we do not get any funding, which makes the fact that we have grown from a pilot project in 2019, helping 400 families in the first month, astounding.
“It is amazing the work that our volunteers do, which they don’t get enough credit for. But it is sad that there is a need for our support in a town of just 74,000 people.”
This week volunteers attended a special surprise thank you event held in their honour at Share Alike’s town centre premises in Righead Gate.
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