This is a text-only version of an article first published on Friday, 23 September 2016. Information shown on this page may no longer be current.
FOOD BANKS are seeing a massive rise in the number of clients relying on them for emergency food aid in Oxfordshire, Berkshire and Buckinghamshire.
Ben Okafor plays his own brand of reggae at the launch of 999 Food.
That is just one of the findings of 999 Food, a diocesan response to the increase in food poverty among the UK's most vulnerable people.
Statistics cited in the report, written by Alison Webster, the Diocesan Social Responsibility Advisor, show that one in five working parents had to choose between paying an essential bill or putting food on the table.
Meanwhile sanctions on benefits are seeing more and more people relying on foodbanks.
Quotes cited in the report include: "A woman and her teenage son had left home due to domestic violence but are being located into temporary accommodation today.
They are starting from nothing and waiting for benefits to come through. " "Man and his partner, sanctioned from benefits for four weeks.
No job, no home.
Staying with relations or in a tent. "
Alison launched the publication in front of volunteers and organisers of food banks from across the diocese at an event at High Wycombe's Arts4Every1 venue, supported by singer Ben Okafor and the One Can Trust - a food bank that is expanding to meet other social needs in the Wycombe area. The event gave Food bank volunteers from churches and other organisations the chance to hear each other's stories.
In Buckingham a food box at St Peter and St Paul's Church has grown into a food bank within three years.
"In the last 18 months its really taken off and we've been given storage space in an industrial unit," said Cath McCabe, who was at the event with Mike Evans and Ruth Newell, who are all involved with the Buckingham Food Service.
Nancy Mafilo and Dave Nicks from Slough Food bank,which started through a partnership between the Baptist Church and the Nigerian Church has seen an increase in demand.
Nancy said: "We can feed people who come through our doors but it's sad that we have to.
We fed nearly 4,000 people in the 12 months up to April.
The previous year was 3,000 and the year before that was 1,500. "
David Rooke, Director of the One Can Trust in Wycombe, described how the trust's brand was being used as One Can Hope, looking beyond the sticking plaster solution of food banks in the hope of addressing the underlying problems that make them necessary.
"It's focussed on the deprived areas of Wycombe," said David.
"We are looking at the causes of child poverty.
We can't sort that in three months but we hope that in three years we might make a difference. One Can has already launched a Kingdom Cafe, reaching out to mothers and children in deprived areas and One Can Grow, utilising the gardening skills of the older generation with vegetable plots. "
The Rt Revd John Pritchard, the Bishop of Oxford, who joined End Hunger Fast campaigner, the Revd Dr Keith Hebden, for a meeting with the Prime Minister, David Cameron, to press for an end to food poverty recently, was among the speakers at the 999 Food
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launch. Describing his meeting with David Cameron, Bishop John said he and Keith told the PM they wanted to follow up their meeting next March, to see what progress was being made on food poverty.
"All Governments need to know there is a reckoning and that reckoning is us saying that something needs to be done," he said, praising 999 Food for providing a snapshot of the food poverty situation in the Thames Valley.
Click here to download 999 Food.