Select a region
Within less than a week, Guernsey's foodbank shelves went from being almost bare to temporarily bursting after numerous people made generous donations to help others.
The shelves won't have stayed full for long though, with the Guernsey Welfare Service saying demand remains high.
The charity made an appeal for donations on 23 May - saying the shelves were looking bare as the "food seems to go out as fast as it comes in".
Last week, the foodbank at Mansell Street was "low on everything" - while efforts were also being focused on the new foodbank branch at the Bridge which runs on Tuesday mornings.
A Facebook appeal for supplies, which included different ways to donate to the foodbank had a strong response.
By 28 May, the main foodbank's shelves were looking healthy again.
Welfare Officer Susi Glegg was at the new Bridge branch on Tuesday - which will be open every week for one morning at One New Road.
She said there has been a small increase in the number of foodbank users overall, but staff have noticed more people making repeat visits. GWS has also noticed the impact of the housing crisis on foodbank users over recent months.
"The gap between those who have and those who don't have as much is getting bigger, and prices are going up still, so things are not really looking like they're going to change very quickly, so our numbers have increased only slightly in one sense but the number of times that people are accessing our service is increasing," she said.
"I think that's gone up by 29% so people are coming more often."
Mrs Glegg also explained how the GWS tries to help people beyond just giving them food.
"We just do little things so people can't become dependent upon us, which is why they come only once a month, because we need to help people to budget and think about how they can live within the financial framework that they have," she said.
"I think we put a sticking plaster over a wound, and what we need to do at some point is work out how that wound is caused and how we can actually go back a bit further and try and stop that wound from getting bigger. We're very aware that we're only doing a small amount to keep people going, but we're not really affecting the roots of the problem, and that's something that the island does need to think about especially with rentals going up. We're having a lot of people who are coming who've had to move out of their private accommodation because it's been sold and there's nowhere else to go. There's no emergency housing so people are literally living in cars. Somebody I spoke to the other month has been living in a horse box for six months. That's where they've been living, over the winter months as well, and then accessing showers and toilets where they can. That's actually going on.
"We regularly get people coming in saying that they're out on the streets, relationships have broken down... we help as much as we can, and I think it's important to know that."
READ MORE...
LISTEN: 500+ to visit food bank this Christmas
Food bank gets busier every year
Comments
Comments on this story express the views of the commentator only, not Bailiwick Publishing. We are unable to guarantee the accuracy of any of those comments.