Poole Lifecenter & Foodbank
The Poole Lifecentre & Foodbank is very much more than just a food bank.
The café-styled hub located at St James Church Centre in Church Street provides a safe space for clients to meet representatives from partner agencies such as Shelter, The Energy Advice Team for help on utility supplies, Livewell Dorset and Victim Support Services to name a few.
We caught up with Manager, Illana Smith over a coffee and she gave us a broad perspective on the much-needed work of the charity.
‘When a client comes to our food bank with a voucher for the first time, they will have been referred to us by a local agency, qualifying their need for support. But our strategy isn’t to simply dispense tins of food. Over a cup of tea or coffee we encourage them to share their stories and help us to understand the path they have been on. We then explore options with other partners to provide the much-needed scaffolding to build a more independent life. We hope that their first visit becomes a journey from reliance to resilience as we work to unpick the cause of their situation.’
The centre has around 1,000 clients a month who use Poole Food Bank and it’s various partner agency services. Tinned, dry store cupboard ingredients and non-food items such as nappies are donated at collection points within supermarkets across the Poole area, including two local to the Old Town, ASDA in West Quay Road and Sainsbury’s Local in Orchard Plaza.
Illana went on to outline one of Poole Lifecentre & Foodbank’s current initiatives- the supply of recipe bags. For example, a spaghetti bolognaise bag will contain all of the ingredients and cooking instructions to make and enjoy a nutritious meal. The aim is to encourage families to cook together and learn how to make meals from scratch rather than rely on less nutritious processed foods.
Through building relationships with local stakeholders and organisations the work of the charity will only strengthen. Finally Illana added her thanks to us for selecting Poole Lifecentre and Foodbank:
‘We are extremely grateful to the Poole Old Town Community Group for nominating us as their charity and we look forward to meeting up with members at events. Sadly donations are always needed be they monetary or food provisions.’
Members will know that we hold raffles at some of our social events to raise much needed funds for our nominated charity. This year we will kick off with a Grand Raffle at the Annual Garden Party on Sunday July 5th.
For those wishing to support this year’s charity, you can visit the link below.