Community Grant Awards: Hailsham Foodbank

Hailsham Town Council has provided funding of £500 to Hailsham Foodbank, one of a number of recent grants given to local community groups and voluntary associations as part of the Council’s 2025/26 Community Grants Scheme.

A total of £12,215.47 has been awarded to a wide range of non-profit organisations, aimed at enhancing facilities, activities, and projects that benefit the residents of Hailsham. Such funds are intended to assist organisations that rely on public donations, fundraising, and volunteers to deliver valuable services to the community.​

“We are very grateful to Hailsham Town Council for this grant, which will enable volunteers to be trained up to give budget coaching to reach more people,” said Hailsham Foodbank Manager, Julie Coates.  “This extra support will help people with their budgeting and if their finances don’t cover their expenses they can be signposted to the other services on site to give support.”

Hailsham Foodbank, which opened in September 2012, is part of a nationwide network of foodbanks (supported by The Trussell Trust), working to combat poverty and hunger across the UK, and is a project founded by the Crosslink Trust – churches together in Hailsham – working towards stopping hunger in the local area.

The foodbank relies entirely on donations of food and money for the provision of food parcels to local people in crisis in exchange for vouchers provided by front-line care professionals, such as health visitors, social workers, church leaders, and community workers.

In the last couple of years, the foodbank has been funding Citizens’ Advice and Community Money Advice to have an advisor each week at the foodbank to help people with general queries, benefits help and debt.  They also have occasional pop-ups from other agencies.  This has seen a decrease in the amount of emergency food parcels given out as people are supported earlier with the relevant help.

In the coming months, the foodbank distribution centre will be moving to larger premises in Hailsham, and the warehouse will move to the current premises. The additional space will enable them to expand on the Community Hub model and one of the additional services will be Budget Coaching alongside their Debt Advisor.

The Mayor of Hailsham, Cllr Chris Bryant commented: “The Town Council is pleased to offer a grant of £500 to Hailsham Foodbank. We all need food, but sometimes it’s easy to take it for granted, and some people find themselves in considerable hardship and struggle to afford to feed themselves and their families. The Foodbank in Hailsham does an amazing job in reaching out to those in need, and the real heroes are the volunteers who give so much of their time week in week out providing emergency help to around 1,000 people a year.”

A full list of recipients of the Community Grants Scheme can be found here.

Due to an underspend in the 2025/26 grants budget, a second round of grant applications will commence later this year whereby the remaining £3,784 (with a starting budget of £16,000) will be shared among successful applicants. The new deadline for applications will be announced soon.