{"id":283315,"date":"2025-04-16T10:39:27","date_gmt":"2025-04-16T10:39:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/04\/16\/darlington-food-bank-forced-to-cut-staff-amid-funding-shortage\/"},"modified":"2025-04-16T10:39:28","modified_gmt":"2025-04-16T10:39:28","slug":"darlington-food-bank-forced-to-cut-staff-amid-funding-shortage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/04\/16\/darlington-food-bank-forced-to-cut-staff-amid-funding-shortage\/","title":{"rendered":"Darlington food bank forced to cut staff amid funding shortage"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Darlington<\/div>


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Stuart Whincup<\/span><\/p>\n

BBC Look North<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\"BBCBBC<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

King\u2019s Food Bank is having to downscale despite an increase in demand<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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A food bank which provides thousands of free meals to struggling families each week said it had been forced to make most of its staff redundant due to a funding shortage. <\/p>\n

King’s Foodbank, which operates out of King\u2019s Church in Darlington and is funded by donations, provided more than 125,000 free meals to people last year. <\/p>\n

Michael Coltman from the church said an increase in demand for the service due to the cost of living crisis meant it no longer had enough money to pay four of its five staff members. <\/p>\n

He said: \u201cIt\u2019s sad when you\u2019re forced into a decision based on finances, not because the need has dried up.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Mr Coltman said the service, which is open to the public, would have to be scaled down. <\/p>\n

He said food parcels would have to go to those most in need who had been referred by social services, doctors or charities.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2018ve had to make change to the service we provide to people in need, based on finances and because we don\u2019t have the provision to do it,” he said. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Michael<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Michael Coltman says the church is committed to keeping the service running<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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Manager Caroline Todd said the vast majority of people who had been accessing the service had \u201cno other choice\u201d. <\/p>\n

She said: ”We see proud people coming here in tears. That\u2019s just what absolutely breaks my heart, that people don\u2019t want to access a food bank.\u201c<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is their last port of call.\u201d<\/p>\n

Staff said demand for the service had increased year on year, with many working families needing help with the cost of living. <\/p>\n

Mr Coltman said the church was committed to keeping the service running in some capacity. <\/p>\n

He said: ”People in Darlington have been so kind and generous over the years and I’d ask if they could continue with their fantastic support as we try to provide for those in the most need.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n


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Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Stuart Whincup BBC Look North BBC King\u2019s Food Bank is having to downscale despite an increase in demand A food bank which provides thousands of free meals to struggling families each week said it had been forced to make most of its staff redundant due to a funding shortage. King’s Foodbank, which operates out of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":283316,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/bbcx\/grey-placeholder.png","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[604],"tags":[673,3177,177413,1720,3445,2801,11000,500],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283315"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=283315"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283315\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":283317,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283315\/revisions\/283317"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/283316"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=283315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=283315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=283315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}