VINEYARD BS4 FOOD BANK

If you need help with food, you can access our Food Bank face-to-face or delivery services when you have a referral voucher from community organisations like schools, GPs and advice agencies.

You can discuss everything you need by calling the free Help Through Hardship hotline - details here from the Trussell Trust - or ask our co-ordinator Kate MacLeod.

Severn Vineyard is delighted to partner with Field Vineyard and St Barnabas Church in the running of two foodbank outlets, in the BS4 area of Bristol. The outlets are part of the wider Trussell Trust South and East Bristol Food Bank Network.

The BS4 outlet was set up initially as a single delivery only Food Bank outlet as a temporary response to the COVID pandemic with the aim of arranging, sorting and delivering food parcels to people in need. Following the pandemic we established a permanent project to continue to bless those in need across the BS4 area. As the project has grown we are now able offer both a face-to-face service at St Barnabas Church in Knowle West, as well as a delivery only outlet that serves Brislington, St Annes, Broomhill and Totterdown areas of the city.

Boxes of food are typically assembled by teams of volunteers either on a Wednesday morning or a Thursday/Sunday evening. The food is then distributed via the St Barnabas clinic on a Wednesday lunchtime or delivered to the wider BS4 area on a Friday afternoon.

The BS4 Food Bank outlet hub runs out of The Harbour, Totterdown (formerly known as Totterdown Methodist Church), 7 Bushy Park, Totterdown, Bristol, BS4 2EG and we would love to invite you to get involved! Please speak to our Food Bank Coordinator Kate MacLeod.

If you would like to join our team of volunteers (in preparing boxes, helping welcome people at the face-to-face service or delivering boxes), or if you would like to donate money or food to the BS4 Food Bank Outlet, you can do that below by clicking on the links.

Summer 2024 Appeal

The crisis isn’t over, but we can help

During the COVID lockdown, we started a Foodbank to provide urgent help to our neighbours. Afterwards, financial pressures remained and worsened. With inflation down from recent record highs, we might wonder if the cost of living crisis is over, but some things tell us otherwise. Not only are our own weekly food costs high, but the number of people who are referred to the Foodbank for urgent support keeps rising.

Thankfully, the generosity of our community and the hard work of our volunteer team helps to meet these needs and have a huge positive impact in people's lives.

One recent client, Michael*, was referred to the Foodbank after taking on full time care responsibility for his daughter, needing him to give up work. Complexity and delays in the benefits system added to the pressure of rising prices, and with a falling income, Michael struggled to pay for essential food and heating, as well as travel costs so his daughter could attend school.

Michael said, “Without the welcoming help, support, and compassion of you all, I would have not only struggled but I doubt I could have managed to help my daughter in the way I would have wanted. The support with food parcels has been crucial in helping us both. The other aspects of help like clothes, energy cost support and a good listening ear and advice has reduced some of the other physical and mental health changes. In this time, things have slowly improved in other areas. Importantly, my daughter has started to overcome the challenges of the past and, as well as dramatically improved school attendance, is now more engaged in class as happier. She is, in the words of others, starting to flourish. The timely support of the Foodbank has been a key part of this. I couldn’t have managed on my own. Thank you!”

(*not his real name, to protect his family) 

The cost of supporting people and families like this is rising, so we need to ask for your financial help.

It can cost the Foodbank up to £17 to support a single person with three days' food. 

To support an average 3-4 person family for a month (typically with four emergency food parcels) can cost up to £140.

Please think about what you would like to give and make your donation here. Thank you for your support!