The foodbank, which ‘helps people living in sheds’ is run by The Trussell Trust
EasyJet giant Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou has donated 550,000 tins of soup to Lambeth and Croydon foodbank. The foodbank is run by The Trussell Trust – and Sir Stelios has donated support to over 80 food banks in their community.
The Trussell Trust helped 23,500 people last year, and gives out 300,000kg of aid to people across the two boroughs. The donation is part of his ‘Food from the Heart’ project which launched in 2012 after the economic crisis in Greece. The work is carried out in five places: the UK, Ireland, Greece, Cyprus, and France.
His previous donations included tins of chilli con carne, and now the budget airline mogul has given an industrial amount of tomato soup. He said: “I was surprised that we are one of the few charities that actually donate food in that quantity. I would encourage more philanthropists to step forward, buy the items, and deliver them directly to the central warehouse.
“This means there is no waste and no risk of the money being diverted elsewhere. My foundation gives back in a diversified way, but I focus on Croydon and London because it is closer to home.”
But despite having a net worth of over £1 billion, the airline mogul conceded his ‘fortune can’t solve poverty’. He said: “This is helping the neediest, equally we help some of the brightest, the best, and yesterday I was at the London School of Economics. [These are] entrepreneurs who start a business, they create jobs. But this is helping those in need.
“The other thing I believe is that my fortune is not big enough to solve poverty all over the world. There might be people in need in the middle of Africa, in the middle of Asia, but I’m going to focus on Croydon and Lambeth because it’s closer to home.”
MyLondon also spoke to Elizabeth Maytom, one of the project managers and the foodbank. She oversees its work, helping those ‘who’ve got no food, or any money to buy food’.
Elizabeth told us that the foodbank has had about half its budget slashed, and now only has about £5,000 to spend on goods, compared to £10,000 before. She said some of the donated food comes from donation boxes in major supermarkets such as Tesco, and Sainsbury’s, and they also get donations from schools, churches, and businesses.
But despite all the work Elizabeth and her team do, they still get haunted by some of the things they see. She shared a harrowing story of a girl with special needs bringing her younger sister to the foodbank, wearing a summer dress in the middle of winter.
She proudly told us, however, that within a few days, the foodbank managed to help out. Elizabeth said: “A young teenager turned up with her much younger sister in the middle of the winter, and the little girl was dressed in a summer dress and sandals in the snow. The older girl had additional needs and didn’t understand that she should have been dressed properly. The mum was disabled, and they just weren’t coping.
“They weren’t in school, and there was no-one looking after her. Within days we changed that situation and moved on. But that was really sad because the little girl was gorgeous and she’s now making much better and there was no one stepping in and helping.”
She added that ‘we’ve also had people living in sheds’. “We’ve discovered people and they said, ‘oh yeah, this is my address’ and you go there and it’s covered in ivy and falling down.”
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