Manchester: student SVP raises funds for food bank

Manchester University St Vincent de Paul Society (SVP MUSCC) has hosted an Easter Charity Formal Dinner at the Catholic Chaplaincy to help raise funds for the Manchester Central Food Bank. SVP MUSCC is a voluntary student organisation serving Manchester; the event helped to raise money that will go towards the estimated cost of £8,000 to start-up the Central Food Bank.

Research as recent as February 2013 has shown that Manchester has the highest child poverty in the UK, while the adjoining areas of Hulme, Ardwick and Gorton feature particularly highly in poverty statistics for the region. It is planned that all of these parts of Manchester will be covered by the Manchester Central Food Bank, which is a new initiative to tackle the rising levels of poverty in the local community. It will enable emergency food relief packages to be distributed among low income families, single parents and students in extreme hardship who are referred to the Food Bank by various referral agencies in the community, such as support services, churches, GPs, hospitals and university student services.

Under the spiritual guidance of the newly re-instated Jesuit chaplains, the student volunteers at Manchester Universities' Catholic Chaplaincy are expanding in numbers and dozens of new, exciting projects are emerging. At the beginning of Lent, students staged their Pancake Day charity fundraiser, with proceeds going to the newly opened L'Arche community house in Didsbury, which supports people with learning disabilities to live as respected and vital members within a family atmosphere.

As they welcomed students, staff, Food Bank supporters, parishioners and members of the wider community to the Easter Charity Formal Dinner, organisers pointed out that even a little generosity can make the world of difference to many of their neighbours in the local community.

For more information see: http://svpmuscc.blogspot.co.uk/