Help The Hungry: Where our readers have led, the government follows

Editorial: Many readers donated money, food or time to our campaign to make sure that those hit hardest by the disruption have enough to eat

Chefs in Schools co-founder Nicole Pisani stirs up a free meal at Grasmere Primary School, Stoke Newington, north London (Daniel Hambury/@stellapicsltd)

What did you do in the war? It is a question that people expected to be asked 75 years ago, when the Second World War ended, and it is a question we may well be asked in the future – even if comparing the coronavirus pandemic to a war is a flawed analogy.

What many of our readers did during this crisis is that they donated money, food or their time to Help The Hungry, our campaign to make sure that those hit hardest by the disruption have enough to eat.

This was an immediate reaction to the unexpected effect of the crisis on the work of food banks – simultaneously decreasing supply and increasing demand. The government was too slow to realise the problem, possibly because it had been reluctant to accept that there was a genuine need for food banks before the virus hit.

So The Independent and the Evening Standard organised with the Felix Project, FareShare and other food charities to try to fill the gap, and we are proud of the £3m that our readers have raised so far.

We are pleased, therefore, that the government yesterday announced significant additional funding for food charities. George Eustice, secretary of state for environment, food and rural affairs, has allocated £16m over the next three months that will support many of the charities that are part of our Help The Hungry network.

We welcome the government’s acceptance that there has been a “significant increase in demand” for the services of food charities, and we acknowledge that ministers did act swiftly to raise rates of universal credit and remove sanctions to try to tackle the problem at source.

But the crisis is great and there remains a vast amount of work to be done.

Without wanting to sound too Victorian, there is a danger that once the government steps in, private citizens will feel that their efforts are no longer necessary. We know that this does not apply to our readers, many of whom are activist communitarians and none of whom need the prompting of the imaginary post-crisis question “What did you do during the coronavirus?” to do the right thing now.

We trust, therefore, that you will contribute in cash, or kind, or time, to one of the many charities listed on our campaign page.

It is good news that ministers have provided extra resources for as many as 5,000 charities and community groups, but all those charities depend on the work of volunteers to make sure that those resources benefit their fellow citizens who are most in need.

Our readers have led the way; the government has followed. Together let us make sure that everyone who needs help can get it.