Organisations that help West Lothian families facing food shortages award grants by council

dailyrecord.co.uk:

Organisations that help low income families facing food shortages have been granted nearly £300,000 by West Lothian Council.The group has provided more than two million meals since it was founded two years agoThe funding application from the West Lothian Food Network was approved at the council executive at its last meeting.

The funding will support the network from this month through to September as the cost of living surges.The network aims to tackle food poverty, sometimes known as food insecurity, where individuals and families don’t have reliable access to sufficient affordable food.In total, the council has agreed £1.2 million to provide additional payments to the West Lothian Food Network.

The funding is provided in phases to support the network over 2021 to 2022 and 2022 to 2023 to help those experiencing food insecurity.The West Lothian Food Network was formed in Spring 2020 with 24 organisations.The plan for the network was agreed just three weeks before the first lockdown was announced and so the founding organisations had to hit the ground running, providing foodstuff and cooked meals to hundreds of people who had to isolate.Its membership has grown to 40 organisations, many of them voluntary, and some social enterprises, which ensures coverage across the whole of West Lothian.The distribution includes a combination of cooked food, emergency food parcels, specific foods to meet the requirements of BAME groups, and access to fresh, frozen and ambient foods as well as providing toiletries, cleaning products, baby food and pet food.The majority of households accessing community food providers since April 2021 say it is because they face financial pressures on a low income or unemployment.Given the ongoing