Lloyd Russell-Moyle, MP for Brighton Kemptown, has nominated Craven Vale Community Association:, to receive £1,000 donated by the trade body bacta, which represents seaside arcades, piers and related attractions.
Craven Vale Community Association has been running a small local food bank for several years for its community, as part of its regular weekly activities. All of those other activities have come to a grinding halt, and they are now operating almost full-time as a food bank. Their numbers have increased six-fold since March, and they have had to move to a larger hall to cater for the increased volumes and to maintain social distancing for their many volunteers.
The money will be used solely to buy food to augment that provided by FareShare and the Brighton and Hove Food Partnership and to provide some little extras that people are missing at this time, especially those items that you do not get from most food banks – for example cat and dog foods for those isolated people whose pet is their only company.
“The money from bacta will enable us to continue sharing not only food, but a true sense of goodwill between those who are in need and those who enjoy packing and delivering it – we truly believe that the food bank is pulling the whole community closer together,” says Alan Cooke, Secretary and Treasurer, Craven Vale Community Association.
Bacta launched its Siding With the Seaside (#sidingwiththeseaside) campaign last year in order to support the seaside communities served by their members and to highlight the lack of government investment that threatens the precious heritage in many seaside towns.
Bacta CEO John White says, “The situation was already serious for many seaside towns whose communities have suffered through lack of employment and local investment. However, when we went into lockdown just before the Easter holidays, the position became far more serious as local businesses were forced to shut and the seasonal trade, which is so vital, was lost. Our members made a total of £23,000 available to give to seaside charities via the MPs who we have got to know through our seaside campaigning work and who are best placed to know who would benefit most.”
ENDS
Editor information:
About bacta: Bacta represents the owners and operators of seaside amusement arcades, over-18 amusement centres, and the companies that hire machines to pubs, clubs, bowling alleys, bingo halls and similar venues. It also represents the manufacturers and distributors of all types of amusement equipment. This can range from children’s rides, to jukeboxes, fruit machines in pubs and clubs, crane grabbers, penny falls, tuppeny nudgers, test your strength machines, videos, pool tables and gaming machines
