A kind-hearted 11-year-old boy used his own birthday money to launch a foodbank service which he runs from his garden shed.
Isaac Winfield fills bags of groceries which have been donated and hands them out
to the needy around his hometown.
Since starting the foodbank in 2020, the service has grown so much that Isaac’s family bought a shed to store the hundreds of donated items.
Well-wishers can now donate food or ask for supplies by contacting the schoolboy via his Friend’s of Isaac Food Bank Facebook page.
“We’d always donated to food banks, and during the pandemic he would take food parcels into school which would be given to people in need,” said his very proud mom Claire, who added that recently Isaac had moved to a specialist school which didn’t have a similar program, leaving him depressed that he couldn’t continue to help people.
“Being the resilient little lad he is, he said ‘it’s alright, we’ll give them food at my house,’” said Claire. “I was laughing, but he had just broken his arm so I let him do it to cheer him up. I doubled what money we gave them normally for food parcels and he went off to Aldi.”
His parents give him a lift in the van at weekends which has been customized with Isaac’s instantly recognizable rainbow logo, but sometimes it’s Isaac who takes the bags of groceries to people on foot.
Those in need are also able to go to Isaac’s foodbank shed in his home town of Redditch, Worcester, which is open 24-hours-a-day, and help themselves.
“With a little bit of help he put all the food he bought in a little greenhouse with some lights and started offering it from there,” Claire remembers. “Someone spotted it and put it on one of those Facebook community sites and it went mad. The greenhouse lasted four weeks before I had to go and get a shed because we ran out of room.”
Now Isaac is planning to expand the service and has a local charity sponsoring him to open a foodbank in the town. He has attracted the help of big sponsors like Morrison’s and a local charity called Building Bridges to keep his foodbank operational.
YouTuber Mark McCann donated the aforementioned van, fully-taxed and insured, to help get the foodbank mobile.
“We have the big shed on the driveway and operations will continue from the house. Luckily we have a big driveway.”
Isaac was born with a rare chromosome disease, and the food bank has helped “massively” with his confidence, as he can’t read or write.
“For his 11th birthday he just wanted foodbank donations and [the shed] was absolutely rammed,” said Claire. “He just wanted to get as many donations in as possible to help as many people as he can.”
Isaac has now been nominated for a local business award and hopes to open his second foodbank in the town next month.
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