Planting Vegetables in France in aid of FareShare
Chris Baines and Camilla Zerr found themselves at Camilla’s home in Eastern France during the lockdown. Rather than simply sitting around, they decided to do something useful – in Chris’ words:
An increasing number of people are unable to purchase or access food during the crisis. In connection with the theme of food, we decided to spend three days on a local cooperative farm which is short-staffed due to the virus. The farm delivers veg boxes to local people and is continuing to do so during the crisis. We asked friends and relatives to pledge a small amount (50p - £2) to be multiplied by the amount of vegetables we picked/planted during our time on the farm, measured in the number of boxes of veg picked, and the rows of veg planted in a field.
The money raised will go to Fareshare, a surplus food distribution charity in the UK. Fareshare is doing vital work to support vulnerable people during the crisis. It distributes unpurchased or unused food to those who need it most, via 11,000 frontline charities.
According to YouGov polling, over 3 million people have gone hungry since the lockdown began. Of those in food insecurity 21% didn’t have enough money to buy adequate food supplies, 50% were unable to get the food they needed from the shops due to shortages and 25% were unable to leave their homes and had no other way to get the food they needed - and the crisis is far from over.
Accordingly, Fareshare have significantly stepped up their distribution of surplus food during the crisis. Donations now are particularly important to pay for the costs of additional warehouse and freezer space, and to set up more food distribution hubs. We hope that our fundraising will go a small way towards these things.
Through our fundraising we hoped to highlight the dual scandals of food insecurity and food waste, in normal times as well as during lockdown. We want to live in a society that decides not to tolerate food poverty as an acceptable by-product of our economic system, and which remains determined to eliminate the need for food banks in the aftermath. Fareshare has connected the dots, and is doing great work to tackle both issues at once.
We are very grateful to everyone who donated and to the Trust for their support, which allowed our efforts to go much further.