On Saturday, Julie joined volunteers from the Trussell Trust, FareShare and Tesco to help encourage shoppers to donate food to support those in need this winter. 

Despite the economic recovery, the latest figures show that demand for food banks has risen by 38% in the last year.  The Trussell Trust’s own figures show that, as a result of low pay, 51,000 more people visited a food bank between April and September 2014 compared with the same period the previous year.

Julie said: 

“I’m obviously happy to help raise awareness of the campaign to collect food for those in need this Winter, however, the fact that we need foodbanks in Sunderland, and the wider UK, in 2014 is scandalous.

“Demand for foodbanks is rising whilst our economy is growing.  This illustrates that the Tory-led Government’s recovery is only a recovery for the privileged few at the top.  It is not a recovery for those out of work or those in work who are seeing their bills go up every month whilst their wages are being reduced in real terms.

“The only way to tackle this problem is to vote Labour in May 2015.”

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