FOOD BANKS IN BRITAIN

Working families, disabled people, single mothers and those in crisis come to this picturesque church to receive a bag of basics from the Trussell Trust's Wiltshire base, to last them through Christmas. Some receive biscuits, some chocolate, a festive treat.

Salisbury is the heartland of the Trussell Trust, the home town of founders Paddy and Carol Henderson, who founded the charity in a garden shed in 1997.

Trussell Trust, the UK's biggest network of food banks which give food parcels to the country's neediest, will give emergency food to over 15,000 over two weeks of Christmas this year 2012.

Louise Wratten, who runs the Trussell Trust’s Salisbury Food Bank, has seen demand erupt during the recession. "We fed over 4,000 people in Salisbury over the last financial year, which was doubled in two years.

FOOD BANKS IN BRITAIN

• Trussell Trust foodbanks have fed over 180,000 people since April 2012.
• Trussell Trust foodbanks fed 128,697 in the entire 2011-12 financial year.
• The Trussell Trust is opening 3 new foodbanks every week.
• At the beginning of December 2011 The Trussell Trust had launched 149 foodbanks nationwide, we now have 292 launched nationwide: almost doubling the number of foodbanks in the last year.
• Trussell Trust foodbanks will give emergency food to over 15,000 over two weeks of Christmas.
• During that period in 2011, the trust fed 8,500 people.