Leeds North & West Foodbank

Who we are

Would you like to join us on our Pathfinder Journey?

As a Trussell Trust food bank we are here to help people in our community, but we know that food is not the answer to poverty. Therefore, it would be wrong for us just to focus on providing the best possible emergency food to people in crisis today. We believe everyone should be able to afford the essentials in life, including food, and we want to see a future where no one needs to use a food bank. 

These new posts will help us work towards the ambitious goal of ending the need for our foodbank service whilst ensuring as long as they are needed our services are of a high quality, accessible to those who require them and offer the extra support that could enable people to move out of their crisis situation.

Background to the Pathfinder Programme 

In April 2020 a Trussell Trust research report “The State of Hunger” demonstrated unacceptable levels of destitution experienced by those accessing support at food banks across the country, both in terms of the numerical data they were able to provide, and through the life stories shared by those using food banks, teams on the ground, and referral partners. 

In short, they saw that there was a very real threat of food banks becoming an institutionalised form of crisis support which was taking on a permanent, structural role on behalf of our society, rather than as a temporary, short-term service to help individuals and communities where we see people struggling.

Against this backdrop, Trussell Trust conducted an extensive piece of strategic planning, to help design a framework where we can see the possibility of stopping or even reversing this growth trend in order to work towards a future where food banks are no longer an ingrained part of mass welfare and social support. The result of this work is the Trussell Trust 2020-2025 Strategy

Leeds North and West foodbank share with Trussell Trust a strong motivation that it isn’t right for food banks to continue growing and that people who are currently accessing our services shouldn’t have to rely on emergency food in lieu of adequate local and national systems of support. Our shared resolve is for a UK without the need for food banks.  By this, we mean we plan to focus deliberately on addressing ‘the need’ – those drivers which are pushing people into needing to access our services. 

Whilst we recognise the enormous social good that food banks have delivered and continue to deliver, and reassuring people that we’ll be around for as long as we’re needed - we know we  must orientate ourselves towards a future without the need for our services so that we don’t inadvertently knit ourselves into the fabric of society. 

Here at Leeds North and West foodbank we believe in Fairness , Compassion , Service and Dignity we are also guided in our work by Trussell Trust’s values of compassion, justice, dignity and community which means we are looking to adopt a proactive approach towards involving people who are experiencing poverty at every level of food bank decision-making and delivery.