Tees Valley charity hopes to support families in poverty

A charity that supports families in poverty in the Tees Valley say they want to help them get out that crisis.

The Junction runs Middlesbrough's Multibank, which launched back in November, and they donate surplus essentials to organisations to hand out to those struggling.

Beth Major, chief executive, said: "We have given out over 200,000 items in the first six weeks from official launch, processed over 700 orders and we've benefitted more than 45,000 individuals.

"We don't want to replace any of those community-based services so we want to link in and support where we can. We know that food banks locally have been under pressure so we've been liasing to make sure they get food to ensure they can keep supporting people that access through their networks.

"We have a huge issue around child poverty. It's not going to go away. We want to support people in the short-term to give them the breathing space to get out of that momentary crisis or stabilise that family or individual for long enough so that the support services can help people to plan for better outcomes in the long-term.

Beth tells us one of her main priorities for this year: "Ensuring that we have that range of products in terms of supplying that surplus goods and those essential items, but we would like to be able to build on that through more local business partnerships to ensure that whatever that individual or families need is we can meet that need."

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