URGENT WINTER APPEAL - Food & Financial Resilience

Aim

Support people impacted by the cost of living crisis by providing emergency food aid and budgetting courses for those on low incomes.

About Himmah 

Himmah is a grassroots community-based organisation providing services tackling food poverty, racism and educational inequalities. For several years we have been bringing food poverty to the forefront, with both food provisions and reports. We are currently crowdfunding in order to raise additional funds so we can sustain and expand our food provision as we face increasing demand due to the cost-of-living crisis.  

We are crowdfunding to increase supplies at our Food Bank (where people experiencing crisis can access food parcels for free) and our FoodPrint shop (a subscription based service, to support families in poverty).

The need 

Currently, in the UK, we are facing the biggest cost of living crisis for decades through 2022/23 and with rising food, fuel and energy prices, we are already seeing that there will be no let-up in the number of citizens needing our support in the short-term. Welfare benefits are not rising at the same rate as the cost of basic items which means those on the lowest incomes have to make their limited money stretch much further. Referrals to food banks have more than doubled across the UK since 2019 and Nottingham is no exception. Himmah's monthly demand for food parcels has increased from around 500 a month in 2020/21 to 1200 a month this year. In addition, the increased cost of food affects our expenditure as we have to spend more on supplies to restock our food bank. 

Additional support

Alongside meeting basic practical needs, Himmah will signpost clients to other support organisations who can advise them on a range of different issues from debt, to benefits, to employability support, to help them to resolve a crisis, and through employment lift themselves from poverty.  This will enable them to address the issues causing financial or related difficulties and reduce the likelihood that they will find themselves in financial crisis again in the future. 

We also want to build financial resilience in the local community by running some finance and budgeting courses for our clients so that they can better understand their finances and manage their income to be able to cope with future financial shocks and challenges. These will be free of charge and accessible for anyone who engages with one of our projects. 

Finally, we  will run a series of cooking classes which will teach people how to cook healthy and delicious meals, with the items they can purchase on a very small budget from our FoodPrint store.  The classes will also reduce food waste as people will be shown how to use all parts of their food items in different ways. Lastly, as people sacrifice social activities in order to be able to pay for essential items such as food and energy, these classes will provide people at risk of isolation with an opportunity to spend time with other people, makes social connections and build new friendships.

Target

We are aiming to raising a total of £20,000 £10,000 from donation and £10,000 from matchfunding) which will enable us to support an additional 1000 people experiencing food poverty. 

This project successfully funded on 13th February 2023