On a freezing cold Wednesday afternoon in the Liberties, a team of dedicated volunteers began setting up their tri-weekly food bank.
Queues started forming on Hanbury Lane well ahead of the 1pm start time, with the volunteers noting that a few elderly people had been waiting outside since 7am. Inside of local butcher C&N Meats, the group are busy organising food and adding names to their ever-growing list of people who require Christmas hampers over the coming weeks.
Liberties locals Fran, Margaret, Vivienne, Phyllis, Lily and Maura set up The D8 Food Bank during the Covid-19 pandemic, and operated out of the Liberty Church until February this year, when they were forced to find a new premises. After three weeks of providing their service on the street and storing their food in the homes of some kind locals, they found a new home on Meath Street.
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Mick Martin, owner of C&N Meats, has been letting the group store their food in his butchers and host the food bank at the side of the building at Hanbury Lane over the past nine months. The local businessman has relieved a huge stress for the group who may not have been able to keep the service running this year without his help.
Volunteer Margaret said: "Mick has been absolutely brilliant, we can't thank him enough. We don't know how we would have been able to do the food bank over the past ten months without him."
The group feed a few hundred people every week, including many elderly people. Margaret explained: "A lot of them might be too embarrassed to ask their family for help while some of them don't have any family around.
"It's terrible, they can barely afford to heat their homes. Some of them are anxious about missing us so they've been waiting since 7am this morning."
The food bank is supported by FoodCloud, who arrive with deliveries before 1pm every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. "We wouldn't be able to do this without them, the service they provide is just amazing so we're very grateful," said Fran.
Once the food was delivered, all of the women got busy bagging meats, dairy items, and other foods into parcels while Fran set up tables outside to hold fruit, veg and water. At 1pm they were all ready and began letting the elderly people come to the table first.
As people approached the table, many threw the spare change they had into the donations box and expressed their gratitude to the volunteers. Separate bags full of ready-to-eat foods were made for their homeless visitors who don't have access to cooking facilities.
Despite demand for their service constantly growing, the group make sure they get to know everyone as best they can. A young mother with her baby were among those in the queue, and one of the volunteers reminded her that there was baby food set aside for her whenever she needs it.
Within 45 minutes, everyone in the queue had received their parcels and the volunteers began closing up for the day. "We're have the food bank every Monday, Wednesday. and Friday but we're here everyday organising the stock and preparing for the Christmas hampers," Margaret said.
"There's a lot of work in it. Over the past year the demand has increased a lot, there's new people here every week.
"There are days when we don't have enough food for everyone and we have to dip into what we've set aside for Christmas. We couldn't bear letting someone leave with nothing."
Local businesses in Dublin 8 support the food bank with donations to help keep them afloat. However, from January the group will need a new premises to operate from to keep their service going.
"Mick has been amazing and we can't thank him enough but we'll need to get somewhere else in the New Year," Margaret said. "Getting sorted for January is the priority now so we can keep delivering our service to those who need it."
If you would like to donate to the D8 Food Bank or can help them out with a new premises, you can contact them on Facebook.
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