Saltire Award Foodbank Project
Thirteen million people live below the poverty line in the UK, with individuals going hungry every day for a range of reasons, from benefit delays to receiving an unexpected bill on a low income.The Trussell Trust
The Trussell Trust’s 400-strong network of foodbanks provides a minimum of three days’ emergency food and support to people experiencing crisis in the UK.
Foodbank use has risen steadily over the past few years :
In 2016/17, the Trussell Trust gave three day emergency food supplies to 1,182,954 people in crisis.
Glasgow North-West Foodbank
Glasgow North-West Foodbank is a project founded by local churches and community groups, working together towards stopping hunger in our local area.
The Trussell Trust has worked with nutritionists to ensure food parcels contains sufficient nutrition for at least three days worth of healthy, balanced meals for individuals and families.
A typical food parcel contains :
- Breakfast cereals
- Soup
- Pasta
- Rice
- Pasta sauce
- Tinned beans
- Tinned meat
- Tinned vegetables
- Tinned fruit
- Tea or coffee
- Sugar
- Biscuits
- Snacks
The Saltire Award
Saltire Awards are the Scottish Governments national youth volunteer awards. They celebrate, recognise and reward the commitment, contribution and achievements of young volunteers in Scotland, aged between 12 and 25.
Young people gain nationally recognised certificates, signed by Scottish Government Ministers, for the different amounts of volunteering they do.
Saltire Awards help young volunteers to reflect on, capture and communicate their learning and development gained through their volunteering.
During the S2 foodbank project our pupils volunteer for a minimum of 10 hours and therefore achieve the Approach certificate.
Pupils’ roles
Pupils are in charge of their own fundraising during the month they run their foodbank.
They fundraise through a variety of different voluntary activities :
- poster making to advertise the foodbank
- sending tweets to encourage donations
- visiting classes or assemblies to advertise their project
- making cakes for a bake sale
- car washing
- sponsored events
- in school competitions
- fundraising at parents’ evenings, concerts etc
Once fundraising is complete, pupils are taken on a trip to Asda to spend their money on items to donate to the foodbank. They check to see which items are listed as required that week and buy what is needed the most.
The items are then donated to the foodbank. In 2016-17 classes managed to donate around 8,000 items.
