THE cost-of-living crisis may have taken its toll on the nation, but Harlow residents have given a vital helping hand to their neighbours – through supporting the work of the Michael Roberts Charitable Trust.

The Harlow charity have calculated that a breathtaking 8 – 10% of the town benefited from food support last year, through the Harlow Foodbank and The Bounty Club.

Over 4,000 food parcels were given out through the Foodbank giving 9,700 people long shelf-life food, topped up with fresh items. The average number of visits was 2.2 – in other words most people just came a few times to get themselves out of crisis. This comes as a great surprise to many, the charity has learnt. Over the same year discussions with the public revealed that a good proportion in the town think that Foodbank users come week after week. Many believe that food banks actually stop users from looking after their own needs and subsidise bad habits – but this isn’t the case.

By contrast, MRCT has offered week-after-week food support through the Bounty Club – a low-cost food outlet that enables families to access a large bag of fresh food for £2.50. This gives households a saving of £20 – 40 a week – a huge saving when times are hard. The food comes from local food businesses: from surplus and end of life food that would otherwise go to land-fill. Around 25,000 ‘Bounty Bags’ were bought at the new project which started last May. Harlow residents may have seen the daily queue for the club which goes down the side of St Paul’s town centre church on weekdays.

Andy Thornton, CEO at MRCT told Your Harlow: 

“Harlow has bucked the national trend on Foodbank use. Numbers are rising rapidly all over the country but slower in Harlow. The Bounty Club is a practical route out of the Foodbank: moving people from crisis to subsidised food. Similarly, people are kept from dipping into crisis level poverty if they access the Bounty Club.

This has become possible thanks to Harlow’s great location for distribution warehouses. We daily pick up food that has got life left on it, and there is a lot of it around here. Thankfully local businesses have been hugely behind the town. We can’t thank them enough, alongside thousands of our individual and group supporters in the town. 

It’s been a tough year, but our team are fantastic: our volunteers and staff are 100% behind Harlow! A million meals is an unbelievable achievement – thanks so much to all who made it happen!”