Jersey charity sees rise in islanders seeking help

More islanders are seeking support for food supplies and free meals, a charity has said

A charity in Jersey says it has seen more islanders coming to it for help.

The Salvation Army told BBC Radio Jersey it had seen an increase in demand for its free homemade soup and bags of groceries.

Community centre manager Emily Jayne Smith said the soup was always gone at the end of every day.

She said: "We want to break as many barriers as we can to make sure people are accessing the right support."

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"We make a massive pot of soup every day and it is very, very rare, that at the end of the day we have any soup left at all," Ms Smith said.

"We're running out every day, which is a bad thing and a good thing, it obviously shows that there is a need but it also shows that people are accessing that support we give here."

Ms Smith said they were seeing an increase in the need to supply groceries, and tried to make the bags as discreet as possible.

"We put them in Tesco Alliance bags, so it looks like they've just gone and done their shopping. We want to break as many barriers as we can to make sure people are accessing the right support," she said.

"We're making up food bags every day and they're going every day... in the last few weeks, we've definitely seeing an increase, some people who are already known to us but a lot who are coming to us for the first time as well."

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