THE manager of a community hub says food donations are down 30 per cent and they’ve seen an increase in families accessing their food parcels.

Teardrops may have started as a homeless support charity, but since then they’ve become a full community service catering to the homeless, helping to prevent homelessness, helping those in crisis and aiding in creating food pantries in schools so no child goes hungry.

However, in the current cost of living crisis, they are feeling the pinch, meaning they’ve had to make some tough decisions.

Speaking to the Star, manager Nick Dyer said: “I’m used to seeing people in crisis sadly, but with the current state of things we’ve gone from 45 regulars to it increasing some nights to 60 plus people needing a warm meal.

“We’ve had people come to us saying they are going without meals to feed their kids and some children are going to school with empty packed lunches.

“It’s a horrifying state of things honestly and we help how ever we can, but more and more are coming to us for food packages and we’ve been in the awful situation where we’ve had to say we have none, but even then if we have anything to spare we throw it together.

“Due to costs our last energy bills were £1,800 up from £750 previously, so that’s how tough it is, and understandably because everyone feels the pinch, food donations and donations across the board are down too so it’s harder to manage.

“So much so we’ve had to stop serving breakfast and lunches on Tuesday’s and Friday’s which is tough as our service users rely on that.

“I understand the situation but the government have not put enough in place to protect the most vulnerable, actually no pretty much everybody in the UK.

“We’ve had Brexit and now the energy crisis due to the war in Ukraine and Covid and it’s snowballed from one thing to another so we know how it’s happened but more needs to be done. Simply saying ‘it’s going to be tough’ helps no one.

“We have to help each other when and how we can.

“If anyone can spare anything, the tin in the cupboard they’ve not used or buying just one extra packet of something in the shop, honestly we can help more people with any bit of support we get and it really makes a difference.

“We are so proud of what we do and we are proud of our community too, we all need help, the foodbanks too, we all need to pitch in when and how we can in whatever way we can.

“When you hear kids are going hungry, that’s a sorry state of affairs isn’t it?”

Donated items can be dropped off at the hub on Crab Street.