Since March 2020 – the number of households the FoodBank are supporting has increased dramatically. The service we provide has evolved naturally to include rehoming donated, good quality household furniture and white goods to people in most need.
The recipients of these goods may be domestic abuse victims – rehomed with no personal possessions, long-term street-homeless people moving into new accommodation, or perhaps care-leavers moving into their first property – after leaving care.
Many of our clients are unable to replace broken furniture or white goods but there are so many local house owners who would like to pass on excellent quality items when they upgrade their own.
A newer, more reliable, and more economical van will mean that we can collect and distribute more donations – encouraging more people to reuse and recycle before sending unwanted items to landfill.
We’ve helped a number of our clients move from temporary to permanent housing in the past few months – with a new van, we’d be able to help a few more.
We would also be able to collect bigger donations from larger stores – more frequently. Lidl and Marks and Spencer in Dartmouth often have bigger donations available – and we would like to collect and redistribute as many of them as possible.