Some Covid-19 food responses in Lincoln City

Foodbanks and food support to vulnerable people

Monks Abbey Primary School

Monks Abbey Primary School are supporting school families with food parcels.

Donations can be taken to the front office at the school on Monks Road, where staff will be available to receive them. Please maintain a 2 metre physical distance.

Special requests are for cereal, UHT milk and tinned food, but anything is gratefully received.

You can also contact the school on 01522 527705 between 8am and 4pm, and leave a voice message at other times.

We set up our own food bank for our vulnerable families in November with donations from staff and the local community – over the past few weeks we have been inundated with requests for food – the staff have been amazing at keeping it stocked up and sourcing donations – one of our TAs lives on RAF Waddington and they have donated 3 car loads of stocks. We are running low after the hand outs yesterday but we’ll keep sourcing donations and see what we can do to support our vulnerable families. We have a welfare team in each day who are ringing our vulnerable families to check that they are okay and this ensures that we are doing all we can during the lockdown.

Mr Carver

Lift project

This project (run from Lincoln Baptist Church) has become more of a takeaway service for our Street People in Lincoln, due to the restrictions.

Please contact Pete Crosby, Community coordinator at Lincoln Baptist Church: pete@lincolnbaptist.co.uk or find out more about their work here: facebook.com/LIFTforLINCOLN

Salvation Army

The Salvation Army in Lincoln are providing food to homeless people. For more information, please contact:

Lieutenant Huw Dutfield 
The Salvation Army, Lincoln Corps
106 High Street, Lincoln LN5 7PY
07934 852 418 / 01522 512 709

huw.dutfield@salvationarmy.org.uk

Love your neighbour project

St Swithins have received funding to launch a Love your neighbour project. They are able to offer provision and delivery of food parcels, as well as phone befriending which will all be run by members of St Swithins Church. This will be able to complement other food and befriending provision on offer in the city. Please contact gethelp@stswithins.org.uk if you know of anyone who would benefit or make the referral through their website www.stswithins.org 

FiSH project

More help needed. Food in School Holidays Voucher scheme enables families who often struggle to feed their children when schools are closed to buy groceries from local shops and supermarkets. With the new levels of poverty our city will be facing due to Covid-19, we are recruiting more churches to take part in this project. Ideally, your Church will adopt a local school, raise the required funds for the vouchers, and deliver the project during the summer holidays. For more information: fish@bridgechurchlincoln.co.uk

Lincolnshire Co-op

Co-op is pairing food stores and pharmacies with local community groups supporting vulnerable people. Groups are offering to pick up shopping and/or prescriptions from co-op food stores and pharmacies. Members of the group will be given a pass to enable them to pick up essential groceries like milk, bread, butter, pasta, toilet roll and paracetamol from food stores (subject to availability)and prescriptions and medical supplies from pharmacies.

Details of your local group and how to contact them for help here.

Pensioners Co-op Voucher Scheme: Do you know any pensioners who are unable to access money for food? You can refer someone to this scheme by calling the City of Lincoln Council. They will be able to receive help from volunteers in their local area who will use Co-op vouchers to purchase their shopping list.  Call the City of Lincoln helpline 01522 873461/873374, or if you would like more information, please email oap@bridgechurchlincoln.co.uk

Sainsburys

Sainsbury’s have launched a new initiative, to allow you, if you are self-isolating and find it hard to get out, to nominate a volunteer to do your shopping for you.

You can buy a Sainsbury’s E-gift card online and put as much money on it as you want. You can then nominate a volunteer on the card, and it will be sent to them to do your shopping for you. The new Volunteer E-Gift card has been introduced to make grocery shopping safe and easy for people self-isolating or social distancing. The E-Gift card is cashless, thereby protecting both the helper and store colleagues. If you would like to try this scheme, go to: sainsburysgiftcard.co.uk

Good food to Lincoln’s key workers

Paul Catlow and Saera Ahmad of the Castle Hotel, a small independent family run Hotel and Restaurant in Lincoln, and have started an initiative to provide meals to the NHS.

The idea is so that NHS staff can eat a decent meal whilst on shift or take it home after a long stressful shift.

The initiative is currently being funded by ourselves; and we will be providing meals on a Monday, Wednesday and Friday but are interested in hearing from other businesses so they can offer the service seven days a week. Read more here…

Saera Ahmad, Castle Hotel

You can donate at:

gofundme.com/f/feed-nhs-lincoln-workers

Or if you are a restaurant wanting to get involved, please contact: info@castlehotel.net

Food delivery & takeaway

Several organisations have compiled lists that have quickly gone out of date, so we have created a page of local food businesses offering takeaway or delivery services. We aim to keep this page live until the end of the Covid threat, so please keep us posted for updates.

Useful resources

Safety guidelines on running a farmers market, from Growing Communities

Food Standards Agency Food safety for community cooking and food banks

Useful guidance for food businesses, foodbanks and community cooking, bulk freezing and food delivery, compiled by Fareshare Cymru

And more…

Community Websites such as nextdoor.co.uk have an increasing number of offers close to you, for cooking meals and food shopping for those of you who are not able to get out and about. Individual qualified cooks and chefs have offered their services through this site as well. 

Lincolnshire County Council has a Resilience Forum’s Communities and Volunteer Coordination Cell which gathers information on local activity, rather than mobilises directly. If you are aware of community activity, or if you need help, contact them: (01522) 787034 or email CEC_CVC@lincoln.fire-uk.org.

The Voluntary Engagement Team in Lincolnshire are wanting all third sector organisations to complete a survey to see what impact Covid-19 has had on them financially and operationally.  https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/MYKT2MC All responses will be treated in confidence and not directly attributed without prior agreement. This needs completing by 16th April. Any questions or queries, please email: ivan.annibal@roseregeneration.co.uk 

Please see latest government guidance for self isolating (staying at home if you think you or someone in your household has got coronavirus) and social distancing (how everyone can help).

Help Feed the Nation

The food sector is suffering from a shortage of workers – and a call is going out to the unemployed, redundant, students and those looking for work to help feed the nation. More information about how to get involved from Greater Lincolnshire LEP

General advice coming from a variety of these sources in relation to Covid-19 and food is: 

• Do not put yourself at risk in any way 
• Don’t panic buy 
• Pace yourself 

Please do tell us your Covid-19 news via our social media or our email address: lincolnfoodpartnership@gmail.com