About
Our Foodbank
Our foodbank was originally founded in 2010 by Daphine Aikens and a small team of people who also had a heart for vulnerable people in our community (Thank you Andy, Elizabeth, Charlie and Stuart!).
With the support of local churches and the wider community, we opened our doors for the first time in Fulham, in June 2010, not knowing how busy we would become. In October 2012 we launched our second Foodbank Centre at St Simon’s Church on Rockley Road. We now have sessions at 4 venues, 8 times a week, Monday to Saturday for people who’ve been referred to us.
We also operate our Support Hub at the Hub @ 75 Bloemfontein Road as a drop-in centre, funded by H&F Council. This is where we base our wraparound support and where we have our staff and volunteers welcoming local residents and giving the support and assistance they need. We run a number of projects from the Hub, such as Fuelbank Foundation vouchers, Alexandra Rose fresh fruit & veg vouchers, Art Club, Feed The Fridge as well as supporting with digital skills, employability skills and hosting Citizens Advice appointments.
We take great care to ensure that anyone visiting one of our Foodbank Centres is welcomed and treated with the dignity that everyone deserves. Snacks and refreshments are served free of charge to visitors whilst our volunteers go through their packing lists with them. We like to give our clients as many choices as possible whilst ensuring that they will have enough food to prepare up to 10 nutritionally balanced meals for themselves and any dependants. As well as food, we also offer toiletries, feminine hygiene products, cleaning products, pet food and baby items when available.
During the winter months, we normally have a range of good quality, clean, second-hand coats available, and other clothing items may also be available too – please ask!
We are pleased that we are also able to offer support from Citizen’s Advice at most of our sessions and we have funding for a caseworker who will support Foodbank users with advice and follow up work in areas such as Benefits, Debt, Housing, Employment and Immigration. This is integral to our goal to try and help resolve any underlying issues which have led to a foodbank referral.
In addition we have other organisations represented at our sessions including H&F Law Centre solicitors and Green Doctors offering energy efficiency advice and home visits.
FoodForThought – our mental health project in partnership with Anchor Counselling, is available to Foodbank clients. This project offers up to 6 free appointments with a professional BACP or UKCP accredited psychotherapist. Most of the people using this service have self-referred. This project is generously funded by the POT Family Trust until 2025 and we hope to expand this funding so we can offer even more counselling to Foodbank users, again with the goal of addressing the underlying cause of why they needed to use Foodbank.
We are grateful for, and rely on support from grants and trusts, Churches and other places of worship, as well as local and national businesses and H&F Council. However, the vast majority of our support comes from individuals and we could not do what we do without the generous support of our local community – thank you to everyone who supports us in whatever way.
We were one of the first foodbanks in London and are proud to be a fully paid up Member of the Trussell Trust Foodbank Network. As a Member, we are able to access valuable information, advice, and support when needed.
Making A Complaint
Hammersmith & Fulham Foodbank is committed to delivering a high standard of service to anyone who engages with our work.
We believe that the best way to improve our service is by learning from the people who use it. We welcome comments, compliments and complaints from clients, referral agencies, volunteers and anyone else we come into contact with in our work. These help us to see what we are doing well and where we can make improvements.
We aim to promote an environment where people are encouraged to raise and discuss issues informally and, where necessary, seek solutions to prevent them developing into problems or complaints.
However, we recognise that there may be situations where people are not happy with the outcome of an informal discussion or feel that the issue needs to be taken further. In these cases, the Hammersmith & Fulham Foodbank has a complaints procedure so that we can work towards a resolution in a fair and transparent manner.