Mayor makes £500 donation to help keep Salvation Army food bank afloat

Carl Whitewood and Cllr Ara at the food bank

A donation of £500 to help keep the Ramsgate Salvation Army food bank afloat has been made by town mayor Raushan Ara.

The food bank is suffering from low stock for the service on Tuesdays and Fridays. Members are also delivering food to those who are self isolating.

Cllr Ara has made the donation from her charity fund to buy food and supplies to help re-stock the service.

She said: “At this critical time, it is essential that we act together as a community, and look after each other – especially our most vulnerable residents.I have spoken to Carl Whitewood,  the Commanding Officer at the Ramsgate Salvation Army citadel. The situation is, that the food bank is rapidly running out of food and other supplies.
“As your Mayor of Ramsgate,  I donated £500 from the Mayors’ Charity Fund  to buy food and supplies to help re-stock the food bank. I  am proud to be part of the Ramsgate Town Council family member.   I would like to thank all of my committee members for their hard work and dedication, over the last nine months for making this possible.

“Many people are not in a position to bulk-buy their food, and the panic buying that has occurred across the country has left many people without the little food that they can afford. Some of these people are vital key-workers.”I appeal to the residents of Thanet. If you are in a position to make a donation of food, money, sanitary products  or toiletries to the Salvation Army, please could you do so. It is very much needed. Also, please do not buy more than you need for your own consumption. This just leads to shortages.

“Also, I would request most strongly that you all please follow the World Health Organisation (WHO) advice to help contain this virus. Self distancing is crucial, as is hand washing, and staying indoors, away from other people. By following these simple steps, we can help ourselves, our families, and our community.

“A massive thank you to all the frontline key workers, from the NHS, carers, shops, the schools, and everywhere else, who are keeping our town and country up and running.”

The food bank is in need of:

Tinned meat

Tinned fish

Pasta sauces

UHT milk

Tea, coffee and sugar

Instant meals such as noodles and rice

Tinned veg and tinned or dry potatoes,

The food bank operates from the Salvation Army base at 167 High Street, Ramsgate, on Tuesday and Friday, 10am to noon. After three parcels in a month the service will only then be able to give a basic bag of pasta, soup and baked beans.

If you need delivery or information call 07900497326.

Find Ramsgate Salvation Army on facebook here

Thanet coronavirus: Useful numbers, groups and shop deliveries list

3 Comments

  1. Great move Raushan and RTC. I have put together everything I can spare that I think will help the Salvation Army food bank. I hope others will do the same to help those locally who have little or nothing in these difficult times.

  2. Very impressive! We might think that the Foodbank would only be used by the frail or elderly, unable to risk going out.
    But we are , rightly, expecting young people, maybe with families, to stay put in the house ,ALL of them, if one is showing signs of Covid19.
    So they can’t leave to go shopping and their supplies will be low if they last tried the local shops that have been stripped bare. So what can they do?
    Especially if they are part of the huge army of people who are losing their already underpaid jobs in hotels, catering, etc
    So they may not be able to just use a card to order deliveries(even if the supermarkets were geared-up for it!)
    Britain has been “running on empty” for years whether it is the NHS, Social Care, Universal Credit, or just our wages. Now reality hits.

  3. This is a great gift but why are The Salvation Army so short of food when there are charities like Fareshare that they know about? Tons of food is wasted through supermarkets and their distribution centres so why is The S.A. going without? I just don’t understand.

Comments are closed.