Moray Food Plus working hard to keep up with demand
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MORAY Food Plus has had to stand down its pool of volunteers due to safety concerns as the Covid-19 pandemic continues.
However, the charity is working hard to keep up with demand for emergency food parcels.
Mairi McCallum, project co-ordinator, said space at the headquarters in the High Street in Elgin was not conducive to safe social distancing measures.
For now, a small team of core staff is carrying on with emergency food referrals.
However, the charity is also looking to tie in with other community efforts ongoing to ensure people in need continue to receive food supplies.
“The safety of our volunteers is the most important thing and a lot of them are in the ‘at risk’ group,” she said.
The charity has a group of 10 volunteers and for now is working with four employees operating out of the office, one doing cooking and another home-based.
She fully expects demand to rise as more people are impacted financially.
Mairi said the community response to the coronaviris crisis is the most positive aspect of the current situation.
“We have started contacting the community councils to offer our support.”
Moray Food Plus is working in partnership with Quarriers charity to ensure people receive basic food parcels.
“We have had to stop the majority of our projects. We have stopped taking self-referrals at the moment.”
With many people not working, the charity is signposting people to the Moray Council Money Advice service or Moray Citizens Advice Bureau to ensure they get the best advice.
It is still receiving lots of donations from the public, all through the major supermarkets which retain donation points with other collection points mostly closed.
Scottish Gas has also offered to collect donations on behalf of Moray Food Plus.
