It's no secret that the country has been going through a cost of living crisis. For many of our customers and their communities this has been extremely challenging with many forced to choose between heating or eating during the winter months.
To help do our part to help struggling households we donated £7,000 to foodbanks across the East Midlands in December.
The money was raised by the two of our gas servicing contractors, J Tomlinson (now sadly in administration) and Aaron Services. They both agreed to build up a pot of money for every time Futures successfully scheduled a free gas safety check at a customer’s home on the first attempt. They then kindly let us decide who the donation should go to.
The decision to donate the money to foodbanks, and to which ones, was supported by data requested from our Money Advice and Tenancy Support teams. We looked at which services we were referring our customers to the most and chose those with the highest demand.
Tracey Gibson, Organiser at Oscari, who received a share of the donation said: “The cheque we received means a pallet of frozen food. That pallet of frozen food means 300 families are guaranteed a hot evening meal.
"On average, each family has two children, so that makes four people per family. Those four people per family equate to 1,200 people being fed. So, the stark reality of it is that without the generosity of donors like yourselves, 1,200 people would go without food.”
In total, ten community organisations, such as community larders, pantries, social supermarkets, and foodbanks received a share of the £7,000. Each foodbank spoke about the increase in demand for their services and how more people in work were now needing support too.
While all were incredibly thankful for the support to continue supporting the community, one comment from from the team at the Daventry food bank was particularly thought-provoking: “Food banks are the only organisation where the day we finally close our doors, is when we can officially say we’ve done a job well done.”
It's thanks to the relationships we have with our gas contractors that we’ve been able to not only support our customers, but the community too.
Keith Taylor, Operations Director at Aaron Services said: “Seeing in person the work these organisations do was very humbling. I’m so pleased that through our working relationship with Futures we could provide some help to the local community which we work in.”
