Essen (dpa / lnw) - The number of people in need who go to the food banks and get food there has increased significantly in North Rhine-Westphalia. "Before the Ukraine war began, we had around 350,000 customers nationwide, now there are at least 500,000," Petra Jung, spokeswoman for the regional food bank association, told the "Neue Ruhr/Neuen Rhein Zeitung" (NRZ) in Essen. Among them are new customers, such as refugees from Ukraine, and also pensioners who stayed away during the peak of the Corona crisis but are now coming back "because they are anxiously waiting for the energy bills to come."
Because of the large number of new customers, some of the 172 food banks in NRW have already stopped admissions. It is "an enormous psychological burden for the volunteers" when they have to send away people who are actually entitled, said Jung. At the same time, the food banks in North Rhine-Westphalia are registering a significant drop in donations in cash and in kind. Supermarkets from which the food banks get their groceries are more cautious than before. "There is less left for us."
