‘Row for Food’: No One Should Go Hungry This Summer

Each and every week, Bournemouth Foodbank makes sure that any individual that needs food and cannot afford to pay for the essentials is supplied with a food parcel. Demand is still increasing in our local areas, and the summer holidays is a special time of increased demand.

What is ‘Row for Food’?

We have teamed up with our staff, supporters and community to take part in ‘Row for Food’ on Saturday 7th June 2025 by competing in the Poole Park Dragon Boat Race. The event is a popular favourite and a charity first, and we will also be competing against employers and organisations to find out who has the fastest time.

You could assist by sponsoring a friend, family member, workmate, or volunteer to take part in this race, who are utterly untrained and inexperienced in the sport of rowing! So we can maintain a lifeline to those in financial crisis and poverty within Bournemouth and areas around it.

How is our foodbank improving financial wellness and self-reliance?

Our overall vision is to eradicate hunger in Bournemouth by empowering our clients into financial resilience and addressing the root causes of poverty within our community. As part of collection of a food parcel, we offer in-house services such as debt advice through the Community Money Advice Service and income maximisation by Citizen’s Advice. By providing a safe place to access their food parcel, the advice and support required, and a cup of tea and a chat with our support workers, we hope to assist in helping individuals break out of crisis and into financial resilience. Food is a brilliant gateway to access people face to face, also addressing the digital poverty that lies within our community.

We understand that food banks must provide a whole lot more than food and that offering a range of extra support and advice, including debt and budget advice, builds resilience and deals with some of the things that can cause food insecurity. We want to get to a place where fewer and fewer individuals and families feel compelled to have to keep relying on a foodbank. Being able to lay the debt burden aside is part of that. We work throughout the community of Bournemouth to assist individuals and families (who are willing) to produce a plan to deal with debt with the aim to ultimately be debt free and no longer require food support. It is of paramount importance at a time when cost of living crisis, housing crisis, and energy crisis are not going to disappear anytime soon.

Simply to have a professional hand with a computer can reduce so much hardship and distress in our clients, and they can access it by appointment or through a drop-in. Food is our first entry point in reaching those who require this lifeline, which supports medium to long term financial health.

We’re raising money to help us continue food provision and delivery where demand has increased significantly within our community. The money raised will go towards being able to continue to give out emergency food parcels to whoever is in need, with each parcel including everything that a client requires. We make food a very effective gateway to connect with our clients who we wouldn’t otherwise have contact with so that when clients collect from one of our six centres, clients are also able to sit with a financial inclusion worker.

More than 60% of referrals to our foodbank are first-time clients; a poignant illustration of the cost of living crisis and how it has affected our community. Your support can help us make sure that no one in our area has to go hungry this summer.

Thank you for your support!

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