Benefit night as Chichester foodbank use rockets

Organiser Terry Timblick said: “Belly laughs are elusive when you’re hungry or anxious about funding your family’s weekly food bill. Humour, by the plateful, and lots of music are, though, what’s being served up by a community initiative to raise awareness of the outstanding but hard-pressed efforts of Chichester Foodbank to keep supplies matching increasing demand. Inflation has much physical discomfort and mental strife to answer for. The Fast Foodbank Show on Friday, May 26, 7.30pm at Christ Church, off South Street, will offer dozens of food jokes not all excruciating, and none in bad taste, appetising poetry by the likes of Pam Ayres, food facts and suggestions for dietary good sense, and lovely music from voices, piano and guitar, all with a food theme. Performers will include reassuringly familiar city singers Rebecca Grove, Stephanie Peat and Mary Quiney, musicians Merryl Spong and Chris Grove, Open Mic poetry reader Christine Rowlands and contributions from Kitchen Sink.

“The emphasis is on quality, of course, but with only 60 minutes or so there will be a quick-fire briskness. With no interval or refreshments it will be over in good time for daylight home-going. Tickets are freely available on request. Each bearer is invited to bring a keepable food item (carton, tin etc) in each hand, and if you want to give more at the end, you can, or perhaps sign up for regular giving. We live in a city rightly proud of its world-class cultural riches, engineering fame and sporting classics. Time for world-class generosity.”

James Venter, of Kitchen Sink Productions: “We are a theatre company based in Chichester, led by a collective of artists committed to making art with and for non-traditional spaces, places and communities. We have always had a need to give back to the community, nearly all our productions have been in aid of different charities, so given by the foodbank a chance to give back to a great cause, well, the only answer was yes! This has been a strange experience from our end. Writing jokes and sketches isn’t something we have had a lot of chances to do so we are relishing the opportunity to make people laugh and provide a little relief.”

Tickets on https://www.eventbrite.com/e/chichester-district-foodbank-charity-concert-tickets-634650064427

Foodbank CEO Joanne Kondabekka added: “We have seen more and more people struggling to afford essentials like food, rent, bills and hygiene products. Last financial year we provided emergency food parcels and support to 7,033 people across Chichester District. Alarmingly, 2,682 of these food parcels were for children. This is 30 per cent up on the previous year and more than 110 per cent than pre-pandemic. It could happen to any of us – losing a job, relationship breakdown, illness, disability, caring responsibilities. None of us are immune to these circumstances and if people are struggling then there should be adequate support systems in place to help them back on their feet. The system is broken and needs fixing. Until then, we will continue to work hard.”

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