St Francis of Assisi’s food hub receives support from local developer – Coventry City Council

​St Francis of Assisi runs in the heart of the community in Radford offering a wide range of services and support to the local community such as employment support, volunteering, ESOL and one of their most successful offers of support in their weekly food hub.

The food hub supports 60 registered families in the area providing a bag of essential food supplies each week. The hub relies on donations from local residents or businesses and on it making successful applications for funding grants to source the food to enable it to keep running.

Construction Company GF Tomlinson, who are working on a build at Barr’s Hill School, reached out to the Community Resilience Team to see what community projects they could get involved with and provide support to, close to the site, as part of their social value commitment to the city.

The team linked them to St Francis of Assisi, and after finding out about the valued and essential support that the food hub offered, they donated £500 to the food hub.

Councillor David Welsh, Cabinet Member for Housing and Communities said: “This kind of support from businesses working in the local area is so valuable to the communities they help. This money can make such a difference and with the help of the Community Resilience Team’s support it has gone to a key hub to support those most in need”

Selina Read, Chief Executive officer from the church added: “We are extremely grateful for the funding GF Tomlinson has given to us. The money will be used towards sourcing food for the families who access our social supermarket. We are seeing an increase in the number of families needing food support, and it is vital that we are able to continue to help those who are facing hardship. GF Tomlinson have helped us to be able to do this”.

Councillor Maya Ali, Ward Councillor for Radford added: “It has been a pleasure to see this valuable community asset get this money from GF Tomlinson. This will really help with all aspects of the support St Francis of Assisi provide to the local community and we are very grateful for their donation”

Carl Wiltshire, Framework & Pre Construction Development Manager from GF Tomlinson shared “Over the past year we have been involved with the construction of new teaching facilities at Barr’s Hill School and as part of our relationship with The School we feel it is extremely important to support the local communities.   Therefore, we are pleased to make a donation to the food bank of St. Francis of Assisi Church, knowing that the food will reach the local families where needed.

 From our visit to the Church,  it was amazing to listen and see how  they operate and ensure that the food provided, helps to make a real difference to the lives of the local people during these times.”