'I was a TGI Fridays chef but now I'm using a food bank'

Fully qualified teachers, lawyers and chefs are just some of the people using a 'lifeline' food bank in Birmingham. Queues of people stretch around the block three times a week to access food parcels at Bethany Food Bank in Witton.

Operating in the shadow of an M6 bridge, the food bank runs from an industrial unit, feeding 1,000 people a month. It has gained a reputation for giving out fresh food and having a judgement-free approach with clients who visit from Tuesday to Thursday.

On the day BirminghamLive visited, a queue had built up ahead of the service opening at 11am. "I am homeless at the moment, it helps me out it keeps me fed" Noel Fishley tells us in the autumnal sun.

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Up until the pandemic, Noel, 52, said he used to work in busy restaurants across Birmingham, including chains like TGI Fridays. But he said he fell down a "spiral" after losing his job during the pandemic when the restaurant he worked in closed.

Taking his time to chat to us about the struggles he faces, Noel said he had been using the food bank for four months after becoming homeless.

He currently lives in a shelter with other men and said he shares his food parcel with anyone who is hungry. "I am a fully qualified chef. I lost my job during lockdown, the restaurant closed down, and now I suffer from depression. What led me down this spiral was losing my job."

Bethany Community Outreach Food Bank was founded by Kevin Warrington in 2014, initially running out of Bethany Pentecostal Church. The food bank then moved to an old car showroom on Orphanage Road in Erdington for three years, and then to another unit on the same site but were forced to move after the land was sold.

They now run out of Brookvale Trading Estate, which sees people queueing with empty bags for life alongside cars waiting for new tyres at a next door garage.

Each person gets two to three bags of fresh food to last them for two weeks. Other additions include fresh flowers, and allergies are catered to as well with options like dairy-free milk. Clients wait outside the warehouse while their parcel is prepared by volunteers, one of whom is in his 80s, who will then call them to collect their food.

Noel added: "I usually share the food I get with the guys in my shared accommodation. Kevin is a lovely man, I do attend the church as well. You meet people going through the same thing as you are.

"I do want to go back to work; I don't see myself staying unemployed much longer. I know I am not the only one. I miss the socialisation with the job; it is an activity. Closing myself into my bedroom is not good.

"I miss getting up in the morning I am a very social person when it is taken away from you it brings you more down. I just really miss those types of things.

"I always had a passion for cooking. All the men in my family are chefs." Kevin explained that Bethany Food Bank has to shell out just over £3,000 a month on rent, as well as paying the council business rates, which has become a real concern for the charity.