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Guernsey Welfare Service is opening a Bridge branch of its foodbank - coinciding with other new services being offered by the Rock Community Church - after both organisations recognised an increased need.
The foodbank and other services will be open to clients every Tuesday morning at the new look One New Road centre, between 09:00 and 13:00.
The Rock Community Church took on the lease for the building - a former hairdressers - earlier this year. The plan is to offer a youth club and other drop-in services, with re-decoration work ongoing before it fully opens.
The foodbank is already operating though, with Tuesday morning's set aside for the Guernsey Welfare Centre to use the facility over the next year as part of a trial period.
Welfare Officer Susi Glegg said the partnership came about after the Rock Community Church identified a need for a northern foodbank branch, particularly with the island's population continuing to grow.
Pictured: Susi Glegg at the new foodbank service on New Road, St Sampson's.
"I think there's a lot of people who live in north, and there's going to be more in the future, and we're really aware that there are a lot of people who are struggling, you can just see it, and there's a lot more elderly people who access the shops on the bridge, for example than you see in town," she said. "So we felt that we need to be as accessible as possible to as many people as possible."
Mrs Glegg is expecting there to be demand for the foodbank Bridge branch as increasing numbers have been using the town centre. She also said that the same rules will apply at the Bridge foodbank as the one operating out of the Caves on Mansell Street, with a once per month limit for any service users.
Mrs Glegg said the Welfare Service will also be offering its other services including budget and recipe advice.
"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.
Team Co-Ordinator of the Rock Community Church, Phil Baldock said the foodbank will be just one service offered at the new One community centre being created on New Road.
"We've been speaking to Guernsey Welfare for over a year about the idea of a foodbank and partnering with them. We were looking at spaces in our current building but we couldn't really find anything suitable, and then we saw this space was available so we had a chat and worked something out."
Pictured (l-r): Susi Glegg of Guernsey Welfare Service and Phil Baldock of Rock Community Church.
The foodbank will be run entirely by Guernsey Welfare Service, with the Rock Community Church not being involved at all except for providing the facility.
Mr Baldock said the other services being launched are all linked to the Church in some way.
"We've got quite a large youth group now at the church so they'll use this space and then on a Sunday morning, they might use it for a group, and then gradually, we're going to build up so that we'll have it as a bit of a bookstore and we'll have some resources here that people can buy, borrow, share, and come in and drop in and sit down, have a drink, not a cafe but just just like a community space where you can come in and chat at certain times.
"We do things like a money management course from the Church, and we do marriage courses, and a thing called an Alpha course, so there's all these different courses we do that could now operate from here and be a bit more accessible to the community for people who might not want to go into a church building."
Mr Baldock reiterated that the foodbank will be run by Guernsey Welfare meaning the service remains confidential to them, and that the Church will not be involved at all.
"They've already got the expertise, so they can run it, just like they do in town, but just from here one morning a week," he said.
Susi Glegg, Welfare Officer for the foodbank run by Guernsey Welfare Service said there has been a small increase in the number of foodbank users overall. but staff have noticed more people making repeat visits.
She also said they've noticed the impact of the housing crisis on foodbank users over recent months.
Pictured: Guernsey Welfare Service works with Olio to reduce food waste too.
"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. I think that's gone up by 29% so people are coming more often," she explained.
"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.
"So it's really great that the Rock have allowed us to have this morning, but this is going to be Guernsey Welfare Service as you know it. It's the same as how it runs at the Caves."
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