This is the first school year for Jean-Yves Cerfontaine at the head of the Charente-Maritime Food Bank. Arriving at the head of the association last May, he was directly confronted with a number of issues, largely due to the increase in beneficiaries.
Increase in beneficiaries and evolution of profiles
The Charentaise-Maritime Food Bank helps “16,800 people“full-time, who therefore benefit from two distributions per month, and”a few thousand“in a more punctual manner. A number that is increasing sharply, underlines Jean-Yves Cerfontaine: “we were less than 10,000 beneficiaries five years ago“And the president talks about potential”additional difficulties” in the future, which forces the association to prepare for it.
An increase which is accompanied by a change in the profiles of beneficiaries: “more and more people who have full-time jobs come to see us because they can no longer make ends meet“. The cause for Jean-Yves Cerfontaine is the rise in prices of rent, gasoline and foodstuffs. Same phenomenon for students: “we see this population increasing, even in schools like Excelia or engineering schools“. This evolution of profiles directly contravenes the typical vision of beneficiaries of the Food Bank: “We expect that it is only people who are on RSA, who are settled in a form of poverty“.
A crucial financial question
Faced with this sharp increase in its number of beneficiaries, the Food Bank 17 must now “have very tight management” of its means to be able to help them. Consequently, the association relies mainly on volunteers, as well as “very little” of employed people.
Especially since public subsidies tend to decrease: Jean-Yves Cerfontaine thus mentions “plane blows“public authorities, with a drop of one”good ten percent“on certain aids.”It is also up to us to mobilize ourselves to get to the heart of the various issues“, he concludes, for “make us heard“and show”non-stop“what”we make the best use of the public money entrusted to us“.
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