Man cries at food bank after eating first proper meal in two weeks

'Something so simple can make them break into tears'

Store House in Skegness relies on 'very generous' local people for donations (Google)

A man cried at a food bank after he received his first substantial meal in two weeks, according to staff.

The man came to the Store House in Skegness for a plate of hot food.

“He just had a chilli and sobbed that he had eaten,” Debby Harland, restore co-ordinator, told Lincolnshire Live.

She added that the man came in on 21 June and had not eaten properly for two weeks.

“In that position, something so simple can make them break into tears," she said.

“It’s awful to see that but we do form relationships. We do get to care about these people. We are human.

“It gets to me. Sometimes I have to go and take a moment to gather myself.

“It makes you grateful for what you have got.”

The Store House is only driven by donations from the public. This May, the food bank had 170 referrals, compared to 49 referrals the previous year.

Ms Harland said that people in Skegness were “very generous”, and that one 84-year-old man had donated £1,000.

“That really helped,” she said.

“I was able to fill the larder. Because of the rise in demand, it is dwindling.

"There is also a rise in people escaping domestic violence."

More than 1.1 million three-day emergency good parcels were given to people between April 2016 and 2017, according to Trussell Trust. A total of 436,000 of those parcels were to children.

A food bank in Glasgow was forced to ask for help on social media as it was running out of supplies.

The Trussell Trust reports that the primary reasons for using food banks are delays and changes to benefit payments, as well as unemployment, disability and mental health issues, and domestic violence.

Before the election Theresa May said there were many “complex” reasons that people use food banks, when questioned as to why there were reports of nurses resorting to emergency food supplies.

After the election, Ms May and her team indicated that austerity - a policy of slashing funds to social services - would have to be cut back after almost eight years as the electorate wanted to improve their living standards