This time in 2023 The Social Crust, Martinborough’s volunteer foodbank, was supplying weekly food boxes to 57 clients – mainly families – in Martinborough and Greytown.
As the group enters the 2024 Christmas season, that figure has become 70 food boxes a week to the needy in the community, a third of those sent to Greytown residents.
With government funding phasing out for foodbanks nationwide, local foodbank founders May and Peter Croft have developed a new “self-help” model by creating a community op-shop, “Priceless on Princess.”
As for the demand from the needy:
“I think we are getting more people who have never asked for food before from a foodbank,” May Croft told The Star. “We are getting more older people who are struggling on a pension as their only source of income. You’re in your own home and you can’t afford rates and insurance – the economics don’t work.”
People are being encouraged to stay in their own home for longer, so they’re not going into care. “You hide them at home so they are there longer than they would normally expect to be – so therefore the financial stress becomes greater.”
Adds Peter Croft: “There is a lot of pressure from government for people to stay in their own homes and to dispense with rest homes till such time as they (elderly) go into hospital care.
“The government is doing that under financial pressure, and the support they give to the care at home is really minimal. They’ll come and help shower, get breakfast but not money, and they might come back at night to help dinner preparation and get them ready for bed. They (might) do some cleaning.
“And people are living longer.”
May: “That creates another issue for older people in their own homes. That generation of people are very proud. They want to be independant but they are not. And that’s sad.”
Peter: “The old foodbanks idea with people living under bridges and on the streets – they went to foodbanks and to soup kitchens, but these people (today) would never dream of going to a soup kitchen.
May: “But foodbanks today are very different.”
Peter: “Very different, but still – if you’ve grown up for 40 years thinking like that, it’s very hard to transition to what we are trying to model.”
May: “And so we’ve had some older people whom we know we provide with food every week, not that they ask for much. And we expect they will always be on the (foodbank supply) list.”
Peter: “Those people under the current situation will never come off the list. Our motto is you can be on the foodbank list for as long as you need and for as long as it takes – but it can’t be forever.
However, “if you are a pensioner renting or owning, it doesn’t matter much – you will be on forever under the current situation, because there is just not enough money (for them to survive).”
May: “For them (the pension) that’s their only income.”
Peter: “If you get a 4 percent rise in your pension, and rates go up 15 percent, shoes go up 15 percent, something has to give.”
While foodbanks across the country are being forced to close their doors amid the economic downturn and the government ending all foodbank support, the couple praise the local community for its support of their volunteer endeavour.
The annual foodbank food drive by the Fire Brigade and Rotary saw “a huge response … and people had thought about (what to contribute) so we got of practical things – not just food,” she said.
The result of the collection was “extraordinarily generous” and suggested people “regarded the foodbank as a worthwhile actrivity they want to participate in.”
