685,000 reasons to be proud...

Volunteers packing food parcels in the foodbank

Late last year a tired but relieved looking mum of five kids was in the City Mission forecourt to collect a food parcel, saying how everything was such a struggle.

“Being able to buy fruit and veggies is tough. Meat too, especially to feed five kids. Increases in the cost of food and power, and with petrol rising too, we’re struggling,” she said.

They would eat well that night, and it was obvious it meant so much.

Later, a father of two waiting for a parcel told his own distressing tale:

“I’ve lost my mum ... I suffer from mental health as well and I have emphysema, so I can’t really work. Being on a benefit doesn’t pay as much as when I had an income,” he said. “The support here really does help.”

It truly does, and we see how much we help people every day. We are proud to operate the city’s biggest foodbank and we know it has a huge positive impact on our community. Just the sheer numbers alone tells you that.

Later this month we will be releasing our 2022 Impact Report, it’s the first time we have done something like this and we did it because we want to show how much good work is done here as a result of the wonderful support we get from our city and region.

Here’s a peek at what is to come. Let’s talk about the Foodbank and what we discovered when we dug back into the records.

From January to December 2022, we served up 17,127 food parcels and when we say food parcels we mean parcels as well as big boxes that feed families of up to six people. Our different-sized parcels support people with three meals a day for four days. That means you helped us provide 685,000 meals to our wider Christchurch community in 2022. That is impact and we can all collectively feel so proud of that achievement.