With the Covid 19 lockdown, BELTA (Bristol Estate Leaseholders & Tenants Assoc) quickly adapted to meet the needs of the most vulnerable residents residing in our local community in East Brighton.

Like the rest of the country, members of our community were suddenly and with little warning directed into self isolation /social distancing and staying at home. It quickly became apparent that many residents were not prepared for these new measures or able to cope. Necessities like food, toiletries and cleaning materials were no longer available or where they were, many residents were unable to access them due to health or financial reasons. BELTA quickly mobilised a group of volunteers and working in tandem with East Brighton Food Coop organised itself to provide an emergency food provision for elderly, vulnerable and self isolating residents on Bristol Estate. Within days we were supplying 25 hot meals a day, delivered to the door by volunteers to people in high need including people who have been homeless and have mental health problems, in some cases we found people had not had access to food for days. In addition, we found we were providing approximately 30+ food parcels a day to people experiencing food insecurity and numbers are growing by the day. Some parcels have been delivered to the door and some are collected from the community centre. We are receiving a large number of inquiries from people wanting to access the service.

East Brighton has a particularly high number of vulnerable people that need our help and support. Residents and other local people we help may be elderly, self isolating on low income, recently unemployed or asylum seekers, they may have poor physical and/or mental health..Bristol Estate is located next to Sussex General hospital and some NHS staff referred to our hub are also prioritised .

Our aims are to deliver hot meals daily and food parcels, weekly whilst also being part of a wider welfare community effort that stretches across the city. The community hub provides an essential distribution centre addressing local community food needs,. Through this we are also providing an outreach service with volunteer team members able to check in on the welfare of local people in a neighbourly, non-invasive way. Our community initiative has been well received not just by our residents but also from residents citywide. The hub is signposting inquiries outside our local community to BH Food Partnership and BHCC. We’re pleased that BELTA has been able to take a proactive approach in responding to this emergency however rolling out the service has also highlighted gaps where we need additional help to deliver support .

We are part of the food emergency network, working closely with Brighton & Hove City Council, Brighton Food Partnership,The Bevy, FareShare,. East Brighton Food Co-op, Acorn and many other newly forming groups.

We’ve had a really positive response to our call for help with numerous volunteers offering up abilities and skills from cooks, administration help, delivery drivers, cleaners, kitchen assistants all have been instrumental in the development of the emergency food hub; we cannot thank these people enough for putting themselves on the front line..

BELTA Emergency food Hub is staffed entirely by community volunteers, their monumental efforts have been the driving force of this operation and now we are operating at full capacity, delivering over fifty hot meals a day and thirty food parcels a week. As the COVID 19 pandemic continues, we plan to further our operation, expanding the service to reach out to the most vulnerable people within our part of the city .

UPDATE: why we need extra funding. We are urgently in need of hotplates, an extra freezer, extra delivery thermal bags/containers. Sustaining a supply of cleaning and protection equipment along with ensuring basic food ingredients are available to prepare meals. Our menus and food parcels are prepared daily based on food donations which we supplement where needed.

We hope this statement gives an insight into our emergency food operation and you feel able to contribute to our effort.

Kind Regards

BELTA Team