The BMJ appeal 2020-21: Independent Food Aid Network gives a voice to those determined to make a difference

The sight of a parent or guardian “standing on the doorstep with tears in their eyes, and the young person so happy that they seem to have food at last” is an everyday experience for Alexandra McMillan.

In June 2020, McMillan, who used to work as a personal trainer, set up the Legendary Community Club in Lewisham, a London borough where 37% of school children experience food insecurity. Since then, she has coordinated the distribution of more than 7500 lunches and 2200 food parcels to prevent children going hungry.

“I was volunteering at the local food bank while on furlough,” she recalls. “Someone mentioned that teachers at nearby schools were dipping into their own pockets to make sure their pupils didn’t go hungry. I saw there was a need and that I could do something.”

What helped, she says, was that, once established, the club became eligible for free membership of the Independent Food Aid Network (IFAN), the charity being supported by The BMJ’s 2020-21 appeal. The network has come into its own during the covid-19 pandemic, supporting a growing number of independent food banks and other community meal providers.

The medical profession has long recognised that this is major public health issue, causing “the heartbreak and pain of suffering hunger for so many children, as well as higher rates of obesity, rickets, and depression, while also a ticking time bomb for premature death from heart disease and diabetes in the future,” says Guddi Singh, a paediatric doctor at the Mary Sheridan Centre for Child Health at the Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust in London.

Singh says that food poverty remains a largely misunderstood problem, despite a campaign led by Marcus Rashford forcing government U-turns on free school meals. In June, Rashford sent a passionate letter to all members of parliament asking for them to reconsider their decision to end free school dinner vouchers. “Political affiliations aside, can we not all agree that no child should be going to bed hungry? Food poverty in England is a pandemic that could span generations if we don’t course correct now.”1

Despite its role as a network to support food aid providers and ensure that people who are unable to afford or access food are able to eat, IFAN’s vision is an end to the need for food banks. “They’re seen as sticking plasters, and members want to work together to bring about changes so they are no longer needed,” explains Helen Crawley, registered nutritionist and director of First Steps Nutrition Trust. “In the meantime, though, IFAN does an excellent job of supporting and representing anyone who is out to help. Through its members, its work is varied, diverse, and sustainable.”

Membership of the network has more than doubled since March and now includes more than 400 independent food banks and other community meal providers tackling child hunger in the UK on a daily basis. Data from May 2020 show that there has been a 177% increase in the number of three day emergency food parcels distributed this year, compared with the same period last year.2 Independent food banks in Scotland reported at least twice the need for emergency food parcels in April to July compared with last year.

“We’ve seen at least twice the demand due to covid-19,” says Paul O’Brien of Micah Liverpool, a social justice charity based at Liverpool Cathedral and a longstanding member of IFAN. “While we used to mainly cater for refugees and homeless people, it’s now mostly working families who aren’t earning enough to be able to feed their children throughout the month.”

O’Brien says that IFAN provided support when panic buying resulted in supply shortages and when older volunteers were no longer able to turn up to help. “With IFAN’s brilliant help,” he says, “it’s very straightforward. If people are hungry, we feed them.”

At another member group—Dads House Charity in Earls Court, London—Billy Granaghan says that “a big increase in need is from the gig economy, manual workers, and bar staff, including men and women, many of them single parents who have lost their jobs and don’t have savings for emergencies—we’ve got young people who first volunteered and now use our food bank.”

Rather than spending funds on infrastructure, IFAN only supports food aid workers who are already established. It deliberately avoids contractual agreements with national supermarkets, though the network’s coordinator, Sabine Goodwin, is quick to intervene when local supermarket branch managers are “uncooperative.”

“Since the onset of covid-19, IFAN has distributed over 500 small, emergency grants to its frontline member organisations ranging from £50 to £100 to enable them to respond to increased need for their services,” she explains.

That kind of funding may seem a drop in the ocean, but “it was enough to buy stock to provide packed lunches for local youth clubs before we crowdfunded for the rest,” says McMillan.