Southend Q Foodbank Together with Trussell 11111 Annual report l May 2024- 30April 2025 https://southend.foodbank.org.uk Southend Foodbank 15 a registered charity in England & Wales IIL621601. Registered address.. Friendship House, 484 Southchurch Road, Southend-on-5ea, SSI 2QA ## **Charity Details** - **Name of Charity: Southend Foodbank** - **Registered Charity Number: 1163160** - **Address: Friendship House, 484 Southchurch Road, Southend-on-sea, SS1 2QA** - **Reporting Period:** 1 May 2024 – 30 April 2025 ## **Structure, Governance and Management** Southend Foodbank is governed by a group of trustees from each of the churches that host the foodbank and from founding churches. Tom Vernon stepped down as chair of trustees in August 2024 and Kim Wright was elected as chair. ## Trustees: 1. Kim Wright, chair of trustees 2. Matt Belcher, treasurer 3. Richard Sapsted 4. Helen Wall 5. Christine Harter 6. Melanie Venables ## **Message from our chair of trustees:** As a charity deeply rooted in the life and teachings of Jesus, our vision remains clear and unwavering: Working towards a hunger-free future. For those of us involved with the Foodbank who share a Christian faith, we recognise God’s Kingdom at work in all we do. Our mission continues to reflect our commitment to serving those in need: **Help for now :** Providing urgent food support to those facing crisis. **Change for tomorrow:** Offering practical help through signposting and financial inclusion initiatives. **Hope for the future:** Equipping and empowering our community through organisation, advocacy, and mobilisation. 1 Motivated by Jesus’ call to love our neighbour, we strive to serve with excellence and compassion. We are equally grateful for every staff member and volunteer—whatever their background or beliefs—whose dedication makes this mission possible. Following a 64.6% increase in access the previous year, we experienced a slight decrease in numbers this year. Thanks to the generosity of our supporters, the hard work of volunteers and staff, and key grants, we’ve managed to keep pace with rising need. We’ve continued to provide three days’ worth of emergency food across eight distribution centres, and expanded our services in meaningful ways. This includes: - Strengthened partnerships with Citizens Advice, offering in-person support at six of our busiest centres. - Ongoing signposting to additional resources to help clients address the root causes of their crisis. - Strategic outreach led by our Communication Coordinator, raising awareness of food poverty through print, radio, and social media. I am truly thankful for the remarkable commitment shown by our staff, volunteers, and trustees. Your faithfulness and passion are what sustain Southend Foodbank’s mission and allow us to stand alongside people in need with practical help and hope. As we look ahead, it’s clear that challenges remain. While donations from churches have fallen from 19,742kg to 18,513kg; but in the last financial year, we gave out 162450kg of food. This disparity highlights the importance of continued prayer, support, and action. Despite the obstacles, we remain grounded in hope. We trust that through God’s grace— and the ongoing generosity of our community—we will continue to be a light in dark places. Thank you for standing with us. Together, we are making a difference. Together, we are helping local people in crisis. Kim Wright Chair of Trustees ## **Objectives and Activities** The charity’s aims and objectives are to provide relief of financial hardship among people living in Southend and Rochford. We do this by providing 3 days of emergency food to people in crisis. In this financial year, we fulfilled 7679 vouchers. We distributed a total of 18753 parcels of food, enough to feed 11590 adults and 7163 children. 2 Our financial inclusion project, funded by Trussell, means that we have a Citizens Advice advisor at 6 of our 8 distribution centres, ready to meet with guests to look into the root causes of their need for a food parcel. We have also had a signposting co-ordinator, also funded by a grant, to increase the signposting capabilities of our volunteers so that signposting to further help can be given at every distribution centre. This is a direct benefit to the public in the form of the guests who we provide food for. ## **Achievements and Performance** - Key accomplishments during the reporting period: Providing enough food to feed 11590 adults and 7163 children. - From April 2024 to March 2025, the Citizens Advice advisors at our centres made financial gains for guests of just under £400,000. This was through helping guests with benefits claims, charitable support, helping with bills and other income maximisation initiatives. - Our partnership with Fuelbank Foundation that enables us to provide a fuel bank voucher to people on pre-payment metres so that they can heat their homes and heat the food that we provide them. - Our partnership with Cadent which provides guests with information and extra support. - Our partnership with Tesco Mobile that provides free calls, texts and data, so that people can be connected with their loved ones, be able to access online help, use data to connect with organisations like the Job Centre and the NHS, and society in general, where being online is a non-negotiable. 3 **Impact on beneficiaries or the community** Quotes from our guests: - “People here are good. They know we aren’t asking for much and they do what they can to give us what we need like the food. There should be more help for them. Yeah, people should be doing more to help everyone but this is really good.” “I didn’t know all this help was here to be honest. I was right at rock bottom and thought there wouldn’t be anything to keep us [her family] together. The boys were saying it would be better to go off to care so they could have the heating on. It broke my heart. But then a friend told me this was here and she comes. It took a lot for her to admit it, but she’s a good friend and she could see I was really hitting rock bottom. We came here together the first time I came here. Now I know it’s here I come when I really need it. [and how are the kids coping?] The heating still isn’t on too much and the flat is always cold but it’s easier when we’ve got some food in and the other help [indicating the advisors and extras] that helps too. I could say to them ‘wait, it’s going to get better’ or ‘don’t worry it won’t always be like this’. We’ve still got problems but it’s helped, you know, the food yeah but the other help and just knowing someone wants to help you.” 4 ## **Challenges** - Lower donations of food – food donations dropped by 6%, so we received around 5 tonnes less food in the financial year than we received last year. - We bought 12% more of the food that we gave out in this financial year. - The percentage of food that we bought to give out vs the amount that was donated was steady at 53%. But in previous years, donations have outstripped purchased. This is a worrying trend. - We have been fortunate to receive funding to purchase food but without that, we wouldn’t have been able to meet the need. - As part of our sustainability plan, we have recruited a community fundraiser, so that we can be less reliant on grant funding. ## **Plans for the Future** - Strategic goals for the next year: our strategy for the next year is to increase our sustainability through increased monthly giving from supporters. We will continue providing financial inclusion at our centres. - We will continue to upskill volunteers so that they can signpost guests to further help within our powers eg Fuelbank foundation vouchers and free SIM cards to access further help online. - We will continue working on a partnership model to offer further help at our centres and empower guests to access the help that is available in the rest of the community. 5 [I'i trussell trust DONATE , g foodbank ¥HELP' lif Gu F(K>dbank Charitable Incorporated Organisation _Registered Charity in England & Wales (no. 1163160)_ ## **Financial accounts** for the year **1[st] May 2024** **—** **30[th] April 2025** 1 ## **SOUTHEND FOODBANK CIO FINANCIAL STATEMENT FOR THE YEAR ENDED 30 APRIL 2025 £s** ## **EXECUTIVE SUMMARY** ## **Income** Income was significantly lower than the previous year – at £265k vs. £488k last year. General donations made up 35% of total income, amounting to £94k. This represents a reduction on last year of 25k as the charity saw a continuation of the trend of lower donations. In addition, grant income was substantially lower than the previous year – at £164k vs. £368k. It should be noted that last year the Foodbank received a number of very large grants contributing to the £368k; comparison with two years ago shows £164k this year vs. £50k in the 2022-23 financial year. The grants received this year included: £61k Financial Inclusion grant covering costs of Citizens’ Advice advisors; £31k Sustainability Grant to fund a Fundraising Co-ordinator; £20k from the National Lottery Community Fund for food purchases; £11k from the Essex Community Fund to fund the Campaigns & Communications Co-ordinator plus additional for staff training; and £6k from Southend Emergency Fund for food costs. ## **Expenditure** Expenditure was at a similar level to last year – at £366k vs. £353k in 2023-24. Food purchases remained the largest expense – at £148k, which was 41% of overall spend. This expenditure on food was fairly flat vs. last year (£158k) as the charity continues to be required to supplement direct food donations with bulk purchases; around 50% of food given to guests is purchased by the Foodbank itself. Salaries and wages were up on the previous year at £116k (vs. £85k); this was as a result of hiring a Fundraising Co-ordinator following the award of a dedicated grant. Spend on fabric and equipment was down (£7k vs. £41k); the purchase of a van and costs to refit the warehouse in the previous financial year was the main driver of this. Salaries and Wages accounted for 32% of overall expenditure; Rent and Utility payments for 8%; Food purchases for 41%; costs of Citizens’ Advice advisors for 13% ## **Funds** Many of the grants received in the previous financial year (and in earlier periods) were restricted to a specific purpose; below is a summary of how these funds have been used over the past year: ## _Restricted Funds_ 2 Of note in the movements listed above are the following transfers between funds: |_Unrestricted funds_|_2025_|_2024_| |---|---|---| |General fund|49,013|107,475| |Reserves|70,000|25,000| Within a designated fund an amount of £70,000 is held in reserve, in accordance with the Reserve Policy. These reserves ensure that the Foodbank can continue operating (covering payroll, rent, utilities etc.) for a period of 6 months in the event income falls sharply. The level of reserves held has been increased substantially by the Trustees over this financial year to reflect the increased payroll and rent/storage costs borne by the charity. In total £49,013 was held in a General fund at the close of the financial year; £70,000 was held in reserve and £100,490 was held in restricted funds. ## _**Matthew Belcher, FIA Treasurer**_ 3 ## **SOUTHEND FOODBANK CIO** ## **FINANCIAL STATEMENT FOR THE YEAR ENDED 30 APRIL 2025** **£s** 4 Sectlon B Balanc• sh••t Total lthla y••r Toi•l last y•ar Flxed a88ets Tanglbl• F01 F02 {Not• 81 Inv•strn•nts {Not• 91 rgtal fix•d •wts Currnnt asset8 sta￿ and work In progv•ss D•btor• {Not• 10) (Short t•rni) Inv•stm•nts C•th at bank and In hand 219,526 219.526 320,341 Total curnt ass•ts Credltws: ￿aunt8 falllng du• wlthln gn• y 10 23 81 N•t cun•nl ass•lrfllabllltJ•sJ 219.504 Total •sMts l•M ¢umt U•bMJths B12 219.504 Cr•dttLYS: amounts f•lllng du• aft•f on• y•¥ 1) Provlglons for Il•bllltl•8 and chwg N•t •M•ts 815 219.504 Funds of the Charlty Unrutrkt•d funds DMSAnat•d funds i Totsl unr•strlct•d funds 107475 817 119013 RMtrkt•d In¢4m• funds (Nol• 12 Endawm•nt funds INot• 12 019 Total lunds 219,504 NOTES TO THE ACCOUNTS Section C Notes to the accounts Icontl Nots5 D•Lg1& of ¢•rtskn It•ms ol •xp•n(4tw• 5.1 Tru•t•• •xp•nM• Pl••s• provld• d•talts of th• amount of •nyp•ym•nt orTrlmburs•m•nt ol DutvoI-pDck•t •Xp•n5￿ mad• to thistw ¢v ¢0 thln* partl•s lor •xp•ftS￿ Incun•d by 1ruSt￿ Mno •xp•nw ww• p•ld, pl••s• •nl•r'P4on•' In lh• •pproprf•t• l>oxf•sJ. 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