The blog provides a lot of opportunities for me, sometimes it’s adventures, sometimes it’s experiences and sometimes it’s meeting special people. Today I met a very special person.
Tony Scanlon is from Boyle, Co. Roscommon. He recently became aware that children, families and individuals, who through a shortage of money, are being forced to go without food. This awareness resulted from the Facebook postings of Ken Smollen a retired guard living in Offaly. He discovered that there are approx 130 individuals/families throughout Co. Offaly, Westmeath and North Tipperary who go without food on a weekly basis. The majority of these people are considered as being financially comfortable. Many are in paid employment but find that the take home pay is not sufficient to meet weekly outgoings.
Tony realised that if this was a problem in certain parts of the country there must be a similar problem where he lives. He found there are families struggling to put food on the table so he was determined to help change this. Tony has joined forces with the Family Resource Centre in Boyle and they now have a food bank.
The food comes from FoodCloud, which is just an amazing idea and well worth checking out. It also comes from the FEAD programme which you can read more about here.
Tony volunteers his time to this cause, he also drives to the FoodClub Hub in Galway to collect the food, to Tesco Sligo and Roscommon Aldi. He has a small storage room to keep the food and he distributes it to those who need it. In some cases where people can’t collect it he delivers it. Tony uses his own van for this and pays for his own fuel. Wouldn’t it be great if there was an organisation or individuals out there who could sponsor this service?
It would also be wonderful if someone in Boyle had a storage unit that Tony could use for this vital service. If anyone who reads the blog can help please get in touch.
The food bank is available to people in South Sligo, Leitrim, Roscommon and East Mayo. It’s a free, confidential service. At the moment it’s just non-perishable items of food available as Tony doesn’t have a refrigerated van, but hopefully one day this might change.
If you need help you can text or call 0867387910 – if you don’t get an answer just leave a message. Or you can find out more on the Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/HiddenPoverty/
Well done Tony. Not all angels have wings.
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