
Since March 2020 Strathaven Foodbank has been a core part of the Avondale COVID-19 community support group ‘Working together for Avondale’ (WTA), which is supported by funding from Strathaven and Glassford Community Council. A key objective has been raising awareness of the fact Strathaven has a food bank and also trying to make sure we reach everyone that needs our support. Through access to these funds, provided by Banks Renewables, Falck Renewables, Renewable Energy Fund and Sandford & Upper Avondale Community Council, WTA has established a Hardship Fund which our Foodbank has access to.
This will help us in providing ongoing support across our community to everyone that needs it. It has also allowed us to set up an arrangement with Ann Davidson Butchers to include a voucher in each food bank so that families and individuals can get access to fresh food to complement the non-perishables in our food parcels. In addition it helps us to be able to provide support for energy costs.
To this end we teamed up with The Giameous from Roasted in Strathaven to produce videos to help people and families make best use of the contents of a typical food parcel. We are very grateful to Strathaven Business Association for hosting the videos on its YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/c/DiscoverStrathaven
The first video produced shows Theo breaking down the contents of a typical food parcel into a series of meals and snacks to last a week.
The second video shows Theo preparing a chicken curry from the ingredients in the food parcel. This recipe can be complemented by adding fresh food bought using the voucher for Ann Davidson Butchers. https://youtu.be/qCteJgAIYIo
The third video shows Theo using items from a typical food parcel from Strathaven Foodbank to prepare a delicious meal of Tuna Couscous. He uses fresh tomatoes from Ann Davidson Butchers to enhance the dish and make it more nutritious.
We will be adding more videos over the coming weeks so look out for them appearing on our Cooking Tips page at Cooking Videos and Recipes.
We continue to be extremely grateful to Sainsbury’s and its customers for donations in the food bank box at the Strathaven branch. Thanks also to Ann Davidson Butchers for agreeing to participate in our voucher scheme. We are also grateful to everyone who donates food and money as we are an entirely volunteer-led organisation.