Another Wednesday afternoon at Oxford Mutual Aid's food bank!

We finished the day's food parcel packing then turned our attention to putting away food deliveries, taking out the food waste, bagging up nappies, restocking shelves, and all the other necessary tasks which are difficult to do during the earlier part of the day.

We were delighted to see Lorenzo back at GoodGym just over 2 weeks since the birth of his daughter.

Last week's Oxford Mutual Aid update:

"This week, we have seen a huge rise in the number of emergency parcel requests. These are people in acute crisis and who have run out of food. They get in touch and that very same day we provide food. This last week alone we received requests for 115 emergency parcels. This means that we supported 238 adults and children over the age of 13, 46 children aged between aged between 5 and 12, and 21 babies and toddlers aged between 0 and 5. That is a 58.6% increase from the week before. At OMA, we are very worried. This is a long term problem that is not going to go away.

It is no surprise to anyone that the cost of living is rising sharply Households are being hit hard across the city, with huge rises in energy bills following the 54% increase to the price cap. This will see bills rise by an average of £693 annually, plunging households already struggling further into crisis.

Support organisations across the country are seeing a rise in demand for assistance, and we ourselves have seen our phones ringing off the hook. Many of these calls are from people whom we have never heard from before who say that they will need ongoing support.

You can read more about these rises, and the devastating impact on low income families here: https://www.jrf.org.uk/press/rising-energy-bills-devastate-poorest-families "