Charities, volunteer and community groups tackling food poverty in Swansea were directly supported with almost £200k by the council last year.
More organisations than ever applied for help from Swansea Council’s Food Poverty Fund.
Among those to make successful bids were foodbanks, community food growing projects, crisis support such as Matthew’s House and schemes to help residents increase their cookery skills and nutrition knowledge.
Swansea Council’s Cabinet Member for Better Communities Alyson Pugh said: “In Swansea we are very fortunate to have some amazing charitable, voluntary and not-for-profit organisations working hard to help people facing food poverty.
“There is a network of foodbanks whose services during the last two years have sadly been needed more than ever and there are also some wonderful schemes strengthening community food initiatives and working to address the root causes of food poverty.
“I am very pleased that thanks to funding from the Welsh Government, Swansea Council has been able to support the vital work that these groups do.”
The council awarded £105k to 22 groups in the first round of grants earlier last year and a further £88,500 was awarded to 17 groups following a second round of applications.
Applications were invited for capital and revenue funding.
Organisations that were successful in round two included the BMHS charity, HOP Foodbank, Exousia Trust, Pontarddulais Partnership, Race Council Cymru, Swansea Community Farm and Swansea Women’s Aid.
Alfred Oyekoya of BMHS said: “Our charity is very grateful to Swansea Council for its support and some of our beneficiaries met with Cllr Pugh to express their gratitude directly.
“We know some of our hard to reach community members would have been left behind without the Food Poverty Funding.”
