As Secret Linen Store expands to your table, we wanted it to be paired with purpose and partner with Trussell, an anti-poverty charity and community of food banks, working together to ensure no one needs a food bank to survive. Until that happens, together they provide emergency food and practical support for people left without enough money to live on.
Carol and Paddy Henderson founded Trussell based on a legacy left by Carol’s mother, Betty Trussell. In 2000, Paddy received a call from a mother in Salisbury who was struggling to afford food for her family.
In response, Paddy started Salisbury Foodbank in his garden shed and garage, providing three days’ emergency food to local people who had been left without enough money to live on.
More than two decades later, thousands of people are involved in running and supporting food banks in the Trussell community.
Today Trussell supports a community of 1,400 food bank locations across the UK. These food banks not only provide emergency food but also offer advice and support that unlocks money and services someone should be getting, so they are less likely to need a food bank in the future.
Trussell rely on the generous support of individuals and partners to be able to deliver this vital work.
If they are to reach a future where no-one needs a food bank, they need to make sure everyone facing hardship can access the best possible support while they work in the long-term to tackle the structural issues that push people to needing a food bank in the first place.
Between March 2023 and April 2024, food banks in the Trussell community have distributed a record 3.1 million emergency food parcels.
Among other things, Trussell also provides:
Key relationships
Partnering with supermarkets to allow some food banks in their community who might have low levels of stock for certain items to purchase bulk food at a reduced price.
Food bank grants
Offering grants to food banks in the Trussell community to provide crucial additional resource that increases the breadth of services they can offer people. This might include hiring new members of staff to increase a food bank’s capacity to provide compassionate support, training for volunteers or funds for warehouse space to meet the increased need for their services.
Help through Hardship Helpline
Providing support to people facing hardship through a telephone helpline run in partnership with Citizen’s Advice, which is free to anyone in England or Wales. Trained advisors support people with checking if they are receiving all the support they are eligible for and signpost them to additional local services, including providing them with a food bank voucher, where needed.
Create Change
They campaign for real change at a policy level and in public opinion. By gathering high quality evidence from their community of food banks to share with policy makers and the public and highlight the reality millions of people in the UK are facing.
Trussell do not think it is right that anyone should ever need to use a food bank, which is why their vision is for a future where everyone has enough money for the essentials.
Too many people in our communities do not have enough money to survive and are forced to make impossible decisions, like whether to buy food or pay household bills.
This is not right!
By working together, Trussell know change is possible! By supporting them you are supporting food banks to provide the best possible help for people facing hunger and hardship , while working towards a better future, where nobody is forced to use a food bank.
To get involved and to find out more visit their website.
