This is a text-only version of an article first published on Tuesday, 19 March 2019. Information shown on this page may no longer be current.
; THE Bishop of Oxford, the Rt Revd Dr Steven Croft will be the guest of honour at the Community Emergency Foodbank's 10th-anniversary party. The foodbank supplies emergency food to about 3,000 of the poorest of the poor in Oxford.
Claire Harvey, from the foodbank, said: "The reasons why families need food are various and no social services system could be designed that caters for the many disasters that destroy families: for example, CEF has supplied food to people facing the problems caused by desertion, physical abuse, substance abuse, death, gambling, gaps in benefits, and imprisonment."CEF is very grateful to the many kind people, companies and churches who give food and financial support so generously and thereby enable CEF's thirty volunteers to do their valuable work."The party, which takes place on Wednesday 11 April, 6-8pm at St Francis Church, Hollow Way, Oxford, (OX3 7JF) is to thank the CEF's supporters and referrers. The anniversary reveals the need for emergency supplies in Oxford and comes just months after an investigation by the Door, our diocesan newspaper, revealed how demand for rural foodbanks is soaring.
We revealed that the Wallingford Foodbank in Oxfordshire helped 400 people in 2011 but that figure rose to more than 1,000 in 2016 and is expected to increase again.
Chiltern Foodbank has centres in Chesham, Wendover, Amersham, and Little Chalfont, with a fifth centre planned in Chalfont St Peter.
The number of meals provided increased from 5,787 in 2011 to 17,739 in 2016 and was predicted to rise to 24,000 in 2017.