A mum who claims her benefits were stopped because she missed a meeting two days after her son was badly hurt in a crash has praised a “lifeline” foodbank.
Laura MacKenzie was among 14 adults and four children who yesterday attended the facility in the Merkinch area of Inverness, run by the Blythswood Trust.
It is one of two organisations providing emergency provisions to hard-pressed families this festive period being supported by the Press and Journal’s Christmas Appeal.
Readers have already donated more than £2,000 towards the trust’s work in the Highlands – including 212 festive hampers and dealing with 600-plus food bank visits this month alone.
There has been a similarly-generous response to our plea for donations of cash and food for Community Food Initiatives North East (Cfine), which is distributing seasonal produce in the Grampian area.
Ms Mackenzie said she had been left with nothing to live on until the end of the month after falling foul of the welfare sanctions regime for missing two appointments.
She forgot about the second because her son had been involved in a serious motorbike accident which left him with a broken collar bone and two broken arms.
Ms MacKenzie yesterday collected three bags of shopping at the food bank which included pasta, rice, tea, coffee and tinned goods.
“I have been relying on my daughter, who is a single parent, and had to move in with her for a week at the start of the month because I was without gas and electricity,” she said.
“The food bank is a very important service. They are really nice people and really understanding and they are working for nothing.
“It’s been a lifeline for me. I have never struggled like this before. I’ve got a whole month’s sanction so I’m behind with the rent and don’t have anything to live on.
“It feels absolutely terrible to be in this situation over Christmas because you don’t know when you are going to get money and when everything is going to get sorted out.
“I am lucky enough to have family around me. If not, I would not be surviving at all. If you have got no support network it must be absolutely terrible.”