Lincoln Foodbank gifted a brand new van to deliver help to where it’s needed

Outside Tesco, on Wragby Road, Lincs Van Hire has generously given a brand new van to Lincoln Foodbank to be serviced and maintained on a free five-year lease. The local charity, Acts Trust who have received the van were “blown away” by the offer.

Acts are a front line local charity that manages Lincoln’s four Foodbank centres. Foodbank centres provide food and support to people in crisis. The Foodbank van team drive around the city to various collection points, where food is being donated — taking it to their warehouse and then onto the city’s distribution points, where they’re connecting with people that need support.

They cover a tremendous amount of miles, and getting the food from place to place is a considerable effort. A comfortable van is critical to Foodbank’s functioning, especially with the increasing demand. This current year Foodbank gave out 2,279 coupons to 4668 people, which is a 23.7% increase in demand from last year. Naturally, as the need and demand go up, so do the operations.

From Left: David Wilson (Foodbank Volunteer Van Driver), Simon Hoare (Chief Executive Officer, Acts Trust), Mathew Broadbent (Managing Director, Lincs Van Hire) and Stuart Williams (Financial Director, Lincs Van Hire)

David Wilson, the main driver, said of their old van, “it was hard work keeping it up and running.” The 15 year old van no longer had a working radio and heater, and cost the charity quite a lot of money to maintain that could be spent more productively.

When Fiona Ashton from Acts Trust approached Lincs Van Hire, they jumped at the chance. Managing director, Matthew Broadbent, said, they were keen to “interact with a charity that affected Lincoln people directly.”

“I think we all take for granted going home and being able to open the fridge or cupboard, cook an evening meal when there are people out there that can’t do that.”

Lincs Van Hire financial director, Stuart Williams, added that the instant support they were offering meant more to them. He said that commonly with charities “you give over the money, and that’s the last you see of it,” with some money spent on marketing and advertising. Whereas with Lincs Van Hire,” it’s being used locally, and we’ll probably see it all over the place.”

Lincs Van Hire will take care of all the servicing and maintenance of the van for five years and donated it with hundreds of pounds worth of food in the back.

Simon Hoare, Chief Executive for Acts Trust, says, “to have a van of this quality is a real boost to the team, it means their own work environment is really good. It’s a bigger van; it’s efficient, and for the city, it’s a great service.”