A Salford church has opened a foodbank café for families to visit in light of the cost-of-living crisis.
Kings Church in Pendlebury decided to open the Winter Welcome Community Café after seeing lots of people struggling in the local community.
Dan Eden from the church said: “We thought what we could do to assist at this time. We have a great building that’s empty quite a bit of the week. We thought this was something that we should do over the winter.
“We’ve got a cook that is going to be cooking a two-course nutritious meal with meat and vegetarian options.”
With people maybe feeling ashamed to use a foodbank, the church is keen to break the stigma.
Mr Eden continued: “I’ve assisted some foodbanks in the past and they’re not really attractive to families because they’re a bit rough and ready.
“Hopefully we’re going to create an afternoon where the mums and dads can just switch off and feel like they’re at a café because they might not have the money available to do that currently so they can hopefully come and feel like they are.”
“We’re going to be serving people instead of them having to queue up in lines, we’re going to sit with people and listen to what they’re going through if they want us to.”
The event is paid for by a grant via a local supermarket. Dan said: “Asda put us forward for a ‘cost of living grant’ that’s helped us not to worry about our finances and make sure that we can just concentrate on delivering this food project.”
With Christmas on the horizon and the cost of living crisis not improving, more people than ever before are turning to charities for help, advice and financial aid.
Mr Eden said: “It’s quite frightening actually, it seems extraordinary. This is going to affect people that have never visited a foodbank before or never needed to reach out to see what services are on offer because it’s hitting people hard.”
The community café is going to be running for a number of months to help Salford families through these tough times with the sessions due to commence from Wednesday December 7.
The event will be held at teatime throughout December, January and February. For more information, please see Kings Church facebook and website
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