S20 Food Bank Report 2020-21
S20 Food Bank Trustees Annual Report for April 2020-March 2021
The charity is run according to the constitution dated 2[nd] May 2016. The charity was registered as a charity on 17 June 2016 under charity number 1167712.
The trustees serving the charity for this financial year were: Ryan Wileman Rev. Sue Stewart Sameena Azam
Our Treasurer is Rosalind Wastnidge
Objects and activities
To work in partnership with a range of community organisations and agencies to relieve poverty or financial hardship among residents and their dependants living in the S20 area of Sheffield, by providing bespoke emergency food parcels and other such items and supplies as may be necessary from time to time, as well as health/housing/money advice, education and any other necessary support designed to enable individuals to generate a sustainable income and become self-sufficient.
To prevent or relieve poverty through undertaking and supporting research into factors that contribute to poverty and the most appropriate ways to mitigate these.
Achievements and Performance
This was the fifth year of the S20 Food Bank but it is fair to say that this was a year like no other. The start of this financial year coincided with the COVID 19 outbreak and the UK being placed into lockdown as a result. This had a seismic impact on demand for our services and led to many enforced changes in the way that we carried out that work.
Probably our biggest achievement of the last 12 months was coping with the many changes that took place in such a short space of time
From April 2020 – March 2021, the Food Bank has seen 133 unique clients (a 20.9% increase on last year). The total number of people fed in the households supported was 281 (a 15.6% increase on last year) and also included 100 children (surprisingly, a 6% decrease on last year). The total amount of food distributed though was 25,369.7kg (105.34% increase on last year)
Whilst the number of clients we saw increased, the increase wasn’t as dramatic as might have been expected. However, where the increase was more marked was in the total number of Food Parcels given, which increased from 474 to 1115 (a 135.23% increase on last year). This indicates that clients
were needing support for longer than normal. This is due to clients’ crisis situations lasting longer but could also be down to the loss of face to face advice work. Previously the Food Bank had operated as part of the S20 Information Station, which was open from 13.00-15.00 on a Monday. As well as the Food Bank, the Information Station had Citizens Advice Worker and Housing Officers present to offer advice. This model allowed us to see clients face to face and provide access to support and advice that could hopefully allow them to address the root causes of their Food Insecurity. Unfortunately, due to the lockdown, this service was no longer possible as face to face working was precluded. Therefore, whereas previously, clients could come and sit down with an advice worker and talk about their circumstances and sometimes return week on week to make progress with their case, they were now limited to a phone call, often with someone they had never met before. This meant that the advice workers were able to make less progress with resolving the root causes of Food Insecurity and had to keep renewing Food Bank referrals that in normal circumstances may have only lasted for a few weeks.
Another big change saw a change in venue for the Food Bank. The previous venue that we used for the Information Station is owned by Sheffield City Council but was rented to us free of charge to use for the Food Bank. However, at the start of the pandemic, the Council asked us to cease using the premises.
We were, therefore, very grateful to a local Community Centre (Com.unity in Westfield) who invited us to use their premises to store and distribute the food from. One of their furloughed staff also came on board as fulltime volunteer to assist with the operation. We, therefore, relocated our food store (which had previously been in a local School) and our operating base to the Community Centre. This was a sizeable task but made the day to day running of the food bank much easier.
Another change that was made was to move from distributing food parcels once a week on a Monday to delivering them 5 days a week. This was largely due to the increase in demand but also due to the fact that referrals were now coming in every day of the week and so rather than make people wait until a Monday, we decided to deal with them all as they came in and therefore follow them up 7 days later.
The initial loss of our usual distribution centre and the ability to meet people in person also led to us moving to a delivery-based model rather than collection based. However, as lockdowns were eased people who were able to started coming to collect their parcels in person.
The changes in working was made possible by the Food Bank receiving many offers of help from new people who wanted to volunteer with us. This was timely as many of the people who had previously volunteered with the Food Bank were unable to do so, for a range of different reasons. This was a sad time for us and led to a period of grieving but also coincided with new people coming in. Within a month of lockdown, the operation was working in a totally different manner, in a new location with an almost entirely new team of volunteers. This led to some teething issues but was helped by the fact that the new volunteers didn’t know the ‘old way’, so we were able to train them entirely in our new way of working.
The increase in demand also, fortunately coincided with an unprecedented increase in donations from a range of different sources. In the last 12 months, we have received donations of 19,662.6kg worth of food (a 145% increase on last year) which represented a financial value of £34,409.55. Much of this came from local individuals and businesses getting in touch to offer donations without us even having to put an appeal out. This demonstrated a huge amount of goodwill from the general public to us for the work that we were doing.
We were also very grateful beneficiaries of food donations from Morrisons and also a scheme set up by Sheffield City Council to provide a weekly food donation from a central food hub. This ran throughout the summer of 2020 and was an invaluable to support to us. This was on top of a
permanent Food Bank collection point in ASDA which has been another invaluable source of food supplies.
We also saw an increase in the number of Referral Agencies referring clients to us from 18 to 42. This demonstrated that awareness of our work was growing within the local area.
We were also really pleased to be able to partner with Westfield Big Local to provide a Christmas Lunch Hamper to all of our clients. This was very gratefully received and came as a big relief to many people.
We also spent £120.00 on providing winter fuel support to families in our area.
Challenges & Responses to the Challenges
Many of the challenges that we have faced have been referred to above.
The loss of our Information Centre has had a big impact on our ability to build relationships with our clients and has also led to a lack of access to advice workers. We believe this has led to an increase in repeat referrals due to less opportunity for clients to access the support they need to resolve their circumstances. Also, just the general nature of the pandemic and the economic consequences of it have meant that some circumstances just aren’t as possible to resolve. We have done our best to manage this by signposting to phone based advice services but this isn’t quite the same as being able to meet someone in person. We hope that once more face to face work is allowed in the coming months that we may be able to start a conversation with CAB Sheffield about the possibility of having an advice worker return to our premises at some point. We believe this would invaluable to our clients.
The loss of many of our regular volunteer team members either through having to ‘shield’ or other personal circumstances was hard to take at the time. We miss them and we know they miss being involved too. This initially led to very really questions as to whether the Food Bank could continue to operate. However, we were very grateful to receive a steady stream of new people enquiring as to how they could help. We did not advertise for any of this help. They came to us, which was great. After a thorough vetting process, we now have a strong team of volunteers who can more than cope with the current level of demand. We have even got to the point where are having to turn down offers of help as we don’t have enough work for the number of people who want to volunteer! We have their details on file though in case anything changes.
At the beginning of the pandemic we had very real concerns about the lack of provision caused by a combination of the increase in demand for our services, coupled with a drop off in many of our regular donation sources. Historically, we have received regular food donations from all of the primary and secondary schools in the Westfield ‘Family of Schools’. However, due to the lockdown and schools closing and then the subsequent restrictions and goods being taken into schools, this dropped off.
The closing of restaurants initially led to us losing our regular donations from KFC (via Food to Donate), and when they reopened the relationship never really got going again. We also chose to end our weekly collections from Tesco (via FareShare Food Cloud) as the majority of the items we were receiving were out of date or short dated.
All of this coincided with supermarkets imposing purchasing restrictions on the number of items that you could buy in one go. Often limited to 3 of each item. This meant that for the first month of the lockdown, we were really struggling to source enough food. However, we were very grateful to local people being incredibly generous in donating items to us and also eventually the supermarkets and City Council providing substantial weekly food donations, which were invaluable. The Christmas
period and Holiday Hunger campaign also led to substantial increases in the level of donations to the Food Bank.
The increase in food donations has also coincided with an increase in the amount of financial donations and grant funding that we were able to access. This has left us in a relatively healthy financial position at the end of the financial year. That said, we are starting to spend more of our financial reserves on food provisions. If this trend were to continue our reserves would deplete substantially.
The Trustees have committed to continue to seek financial grants and regular food and financial donations. This has been achieved this year but will need to continue in the coming year in order to continue delivering our service.
Public Benefit
We have endeavoured at all times to follow the objectives of the charity in order to ensure that all activities engaged in are for the public benefit.
Financial Review
See attached Treasurers Financial Summary
In Conclusion
Historically we have not been the busiest of Food Banks, however, this has increased substantially over the last 12 months. As well as trying to meet the immediate food related needs of the clients, we have always placed a high priority on building personal relationships with as many of our clients as possible. Whilst they are referred to as clients, many have become friends and strong relationships have been formed, with the people we have come across. We have seen a number of lives transformed through the service that we are a part of. This has been a lot harder this year due to not having anywhere near as much contact with our clients. We have tried to mitigate this by ensuring that we make the most of the phone calls with them when we arrange their parcels and also on the doorstep, when the parcels are either delivered or collected. But none of this is any substitute for being able to sit down with them over a drink and a piece of cake as we used to be able to do. This is something that we hope to be able to get back to in some way in the coming months.
It remains to be seen what will happen with our presence in the Community Centre as this begins to open up again. They may want the space that we are using for other activities which may mean that we will have to relocate once again. However, we have a few options if this does happen and will endeavour to choose the option that best suits our needs at that time. Having coped with all that we have coped with in the last 12 months, we are confident that we could cope another venue transition if this were needed.
The Trustees would like to express their sincere thanks to all volunteers and donors who have made our work possible.
We look forward to the day when our service can close due no longer being needed and continue to strive towards the day when this can be the case.
Financial Statement for the year ending 31[st] March 2021
When we opened the S20 Food Bank in May 2016, part of the vision was that after a few years the need for such a facility would reduce to a point where we would naturally close. It’s hard to believe that, five years later, the need is even greater, not helped by the COVID pandemic the likes of which have never been experienced before in most of our lifetimes.
We have been blessed with unbelievably generous donations of both food and cash, which has helped feed the huge demand for food parcels and has left the charity with a healthy balance of just over £14,000, compared to just less than £5,700 at the end of 2019/20.
For income, Grants increased almost fourfold, food donations almost doubled and personal cash donations were five times as much as the previous year. On the expenditure side, food distribution doubled, fuel payments only increased by £10 with virtually no other expenditure. A shredder was purchased to ensure the effective disposal of personal information that is no longer required.
We are indebted to our band of hard working volunteers, many of whom have stepped in for the first time this year. No amount of donations actually physically do the shopping, pack the bags and distribute the parcels to those in need. The Food Bank simply would not function without them. Thank you.
As the turnover of the charity exceeds £25,000 this year for the first time in it’s existence, an independent examination of the accounts is required. This will be done in accordance to the Charity Commission guidance notes in due course and the resulting report will be attached to the Charity’s Annual Returns.
Rosalind Wastnidge
Treasurer
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S20 Food Bank
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Rece
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For the period from
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Section A Receipts and payments
Unrestricted funds
to the nearest £
A1 Receipts
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Grants -
Loans - Hardship - Repayments -
Donations - Food -
Donations - Assets -
Donations - Personal - Gift Aided 1,430
Donations - Personal - Not Gift Aided 1,635
Donations - Other - CAF etc 2,675
Fund Raising -
Gift Aid - Tax Refund -
-
Sub total (Gross income for AR) 5,740
A2 Asset and investment sales, (see
table).
-
-
Sub total [ - ]
Total receipts 5,740
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A3 Payments
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Food -
Fuel 180
Loans - Hardship -
Publicity & Marketing -
Staff Training 25
Staff Expenses -
Stationery 13
Postage -
Telephone 72
Furniture -
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Equipment 25 Electrical Work - Food Store - Sundry Expenses 70 - Sub total 385
A4 Asset and investment purchases, (see table)
- Sub total -
Total payments 385 Net of receipts/(payments) 5,355 A5 Transfers between funds - 1,493 A6 Cash funds last year end 5,669 Cash funds this year end 9,531
Section B Statement of assets and liabilit
Categories
B1 Cash funds
Details Bank Balance Petty Cash Food Cash Value
(agree balances with receip
Details
B2 Other monetary assets
Details
B3 Investment assets
Details
B4 Assets retained for the charity’s own use
Food
Equipment - Donated - Stora
Equipment - Purchased - App
Equipment - Purchased - Che L300CFW14 - Disposed 1/6/1 Equipment - Purchased - Salt Platform Scales Equipment - Purchased - Sto
Furniture - Tables & Chairs fo Equipment - Purchased - 2 x
Details
B5 Liabilities
Signed by one or two trustees on behalf of all the trustees
Signat
1167712
eipts and payments accounts Period start date Period end date To 04/01/2020 03/31/2021
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Restricted funds Endowment funds Total funds
to the nearest £ to the nearest £ to the nearest £
12,233 - 12,233
- - -
34,410 - 34,410
- - -
- - 1,430
- - 1,635
- - 2,675
- - -
- - -
- - -
46,643 - 52,383
- - -
- - -
- - -
46,643 - 52,383
41,466 - 41,466
- - 180
- - -
- - -
- - 25
- - -
- - 13
- - -
- - 72
- - -
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- - 25
- - -
- - 70
- - -
41,466 - 41,851
- - -
- - -
- - -
41,466 - 41,851
5,177 - 10,532
1,493 - -
1,238 - 6,907
7,908 - 17,439
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ties at the end of the period
Unrestricted funds Restricted funds
Total cash funds
pts and payments account(s))
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|||
|---|---|
|to nearest £|to nearest £|
|9,249|4,513|
|282|-|
|-|3,395|
|9,531|7,908|
|OK|OK|
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Unrestricted funds Restricted funds
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to nearest £ to nearest £
- -
- -
- -
- -
- -
- -
Fund to which asset
Cost (optional)
belongs
-
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-
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Fund to which asset
Cost (optional)
belongs
Food Bank -
age Racking Food Bank 1,000
ple iPhone 5S Food Bank 279
est Freezer Logic Food Bank 199
9
ter Brecknell WS300 Food Bank 217
rage Racking Food Bank 510
or Info Centre Food Bank 222
Upright Freezers Food Bank 648
-
Fund to which liability Amount due (optional)
relates
-
-
-
-
-
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ture
Print Name
CC16a
Last year
to the nearest £
3,375 - 14,044 - 460 140 460 33 313 - 18,825
18,825
20,717 170 - 65 66 - 72 - 69 20
583 - 152 - 21,914
-
21,914 - 3,089 - 9,996 6,907
Endowment funds to nearest £ - - - -
OK
Endowment funds
to nearest £ - - - - - - Current value (optional) -
-
Current value (optional) 3,395 16 - - 7 68 - 410 -
When due (optional)
Date of approval
Independent examlnerfs rnport to the tntstees olS20 Foodb•nk1116r1121. I report to ¢he trustees on my exonall0n of ihe accounts of S20 Foodbank lthe Trustl for the year ended 31 Marth 2021. RmIbIlI0w and b•sts ol report A5 the charityirustees ofthe TyOU are resptbIe forthe preparation ofthe accounts In accordan with the requlrements of the CharitiesAct 2011 Ilhe ACVI. I report In respect of my examlnatknn of the Trusfs accounts carrfed out under sectlon 145 of the 2011 Act and in carrylngout myexamination I have followed all the applkable Dlrffdons 8i¥tn by the Charlty Commlssh)n under sertn 1451Sllbl of the A¢L Independent •xamln¢¢s ststernent I have cornpleted my examlnation. I confim that no materlal matters have come to my atteniion in ConneCtn wlih the examlnatlon me cause to believe thai th ary material respect: l. Jccountln8 records wefe not kept In respect of Trust a5 Ore by sectlon 130 of the Art; or 2. the accounts do not accord wlth those rectyds. I have no concerns and ha come acro no othermattery In connectbon wilh the examlnatbon to whlch attentlon should be drawn Sn thls report In order to a pmper understandlng of the accoLtnts to be reathed. SIKned.. Plame.. Jonathin Berry RelaTrI wolessnal qualllkallon Of membenhlp ol professlonal bodles: Asjoclaie member, Chartered Insiliute of Banke, Cert Cl8. Address.. 5 eIT$ Wew, Sheffbeld. S20 IXI. 0•11'. 27 luly 2021.