Food aid volunteers are helping an increasing number of people in the Tavistock area who are in full-time jobs.

As the cost of living stays high, TavyHelps community interest company (CIC) has become an increasingly vital service for people struggling to afford to feed themselves and their families – even those in work.

This is starkly demonstrated by a visit to the group’s Tavistock Saturday FoodStore which has a long queue outside the door long before it opens, including several couples each in work. The same applied to its Horrabridge food hub.

The service offers a wide variety of food to locals who are asked for a small donation to fund costs of providing the service.

Graham Parker, TavyHelps organiser, said: “However, if a family cannot afford this, we still supply food. We don’t send anyone away without food.

“We serve a wide cross-section. Some come to support our fight against food waste while others are experiencing food insecurity.

“Sometimes this is a temporary crisis, being unemployed, or having an unexpected, bill. Some refugee families will come for a while, then never again once circumstances improved.

“For others, the situation is more long-term. As well as people on benefits and fixed incomes, many come to us are in work, but for whom rising costs of housing, fuel and energy have outstripped any increases in income that they might have had.

“We even have public service workers who need help at certain times of the month, working single parents who need help every week and pensioners whose pension doesn’t stretch to buying all of food they need.”

Patrick comes every week to the hub: “Food’s getting more and more expensive. The hub is vital to stretch my budget to eat my vegetarian diet.”

Jo and Steve live together and both work, yet still need to use the hub. Jo said: “We work, but find it difficult to afford fresh food, so we grow our own. But getting cheap fresh food here means we can afford to buy some extras, especially for the kids at Christmas.”

Charlene, from Gunnislake, said: “Healthy fresh fruit and veg is too expensive, so I get it every Saturday at the hub.”

The Tavistock Saturday FoodStore and Horrabridge hub together help 55 families per week (140 people), (initially 15 families). They give out 500kg of food a week or 25.7 tonnes per year.

TavyHelps also meets increasing demand for its home-delivered ‘Christmas Treats’ to deserving residents. This began in 2020 with 60 home deliveries, now 200 deliveries.

TaviHelps grew out of Tavistock Locals Help in 2020 during the covid lockdown, when people could not attend a community Christmas Day lunch. In response, Christmas food was taken to them at home and Christmas Treats was born.

Graham explained: “We discovered, through TavyHelps Christmas Treats, there are many people in the Tavistock area for whom access to good amounts of decent food is a struggle.”

To meet this need in 2022 (after Tavistock Locals Help disbanded) TavyHelps formed Tavistock Saturday FoodStore, working with donated food supplier Fareshare South West.