Christian foodbanks across the UK are stepping in to help impoverished parents struggling to buy enough food to feed their children.

The Trussell Trust charity said it expected around 20,000 children to have received emergency food from its nationwide network of foodbanks by the end of the year.

According to figures out this week from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, there are 3.7 million children living in poverty in the UK.

The Trussell Trust said some parents were so desperate they were skipping meals or considering stealing in order to feed their children.

The charity’s director, Chris Mould, said there was an urgent need for more foodbanks.

“It’s not just homeless people who go hungry in the UK. In our foodbanks right across the country we meet parents who haven’t eaten properly in weeks, children who’ve been surviving on nothing but toast,” he said.

“And many of these are people in work. It often only takes a breakdown of a car or washing machine or an unexpected bill to tip a family over the edge.
“Our church-led foodbanks give emergency food to people in crisis but with 13 million Britons living below the poverty line and only 75 UK foodbanks, there is an urgent need for more foodbanks.”

Out of the children living in poverty in the UK, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation said that 2.1 million - more than half – were in households that have at least one working parent or carer. That amounts to 400,000 more than five years ago.

At the height of the recession last year, some 41,000 people were fed by foodbanks in the UK, but the Trussell Trust expects that number to jump to 60,000 this year.

The charity warned that many low-income families were likely to face hardship in December and January, the two months of the year when they may be forced to choose between eating and heating.

Mr Mould appealed to churches to reach families in need by starting up their own foodbank.

“People in work and poor are tragically so often overlooked and it is essential that action to reduce poverty addresses the issues in a proper, inclusive way,” he said.

“Trussell Trust foodbanks make a vital difference to every person they help but with a network of 75 can only scratch the surface of a serious national problem.

“As Christians we need to stand with people in poverty. We are urging churches to help fight poverty in their local communities by starting a foodbank.”