Farewell to our Manager

Slough Foodbank would like to express our huge thanks to Laura Cole for her dedication and immense contribution over the past 3 years as Slough Foodbank Manager.

During this time, significant changes have been implemented to benefit the clients of Slough Foodbank including securing grants to enable provision of Financial Inclusion and a Signposting Officer. Laura oversaw the implementation of the Financial Inclusion project – a partnership with Citizens Advice East Berkshire, where we are able to provide a long-term approach helping people get the advice they need so they can reduce their reliance on crisis support, including the use of foodbanks, as their financial situation improves.

The need for Slough Foodbank is greater than ever, during Laura’s time at Slough Foodbank – the level of demand has increased over 30% with 12,147 food parcels being provided in 2024. With this increase in demand, comes an associated increase in demand for volunteers to deliver the service, donations of food and toiletries and operational and administration burden. Laura has smoothly dealt with these demands and led our wonderful team of volunteers and small staff team expertly.

We will miss Laura for her strategic insight, operational excellence and compassionate approach. We wish her all the best in her next endeavour.

Laura commented:

“It has been a privilege to lead Slough Foodbank over the past 3 years. I joined with a passion and enthusiasm to help end poverty in Slough. It’s a sad reality that the demand in the services for Slough Foodbank has continued to increase. The cost of living crisis hit the Slough community hard and the current ongoing increase in prices hits those in the weakest position the most. Ongoing change needs to happen at a governmental level to ensure that everyone has enough to cover the essentials.

 

I want to thank all the volunteers and everyone in the Slough Community for their support of Slough Foodbank. I’m looking forward to my next adventure which remains within the Trussell Foodbank network but I will miss my team at Slough.”

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