Bishop Helen-Ann has accepted an invitation to become a patron of Newcastle Foodbank – describing the appointment as “a great honour indeed.”
The foodbank offers emergency food assistance to people in need across the city, as well as other essential services, and opened its Community Pantry in Blakelaw a year ago.
The Bishop, who attended the Community Pantry on Tuesday, as it marked its first anniversary, has vowed to use her position as Bishop of Newcastle and as a Lords Spiritual as a platform to raise awareness of the issues which make the foodbank such a necessity in today’s society.
“I am delighted to be made a patron of the Newcastle Foodbank,” She said. “It was very good to mark this appointment by joining in with the first year celebrations of the food pantry at Blakelaw Community Centre.”
The pantry provides an excellent range of essentials in such a way that it enables people to choose what they would like to have - giving them dignity and agency in accessing this service. Alongside this are opportunities to access welfare and benefits advice and to catch up with the staff and volunteers who support the work of the foodbank, as well as the facilities that are offered by the Community Centre itself.
Bishop Helen-Ann added: “I hope that in my role as a patron I will be able to use this platform as Bishop of Newcastle and as a Lords Spiritual to highlight the many systemic issues of injustice that make the foodbank a necessity of daily life for so many people.
“I hope also to be able to shine a light of hope on the stories of community and kindness that I see. The foodbank itself was started by the Church and it is rightly proud of its origins, something that my invitation to become a patron connects with in a way that I find deeply inspiring. It is a great honour indeed.”
Newcastle Foodbank took to social media to express its delight that Bishop Helen-Ann had become a patron.
It Tweeted: “We look forward to working with the Bishop to help highlight and address the issue of food poverty across our city.”
To find out more about Newcastle foodbank, visit newcastlefoodbank.org