Foodbanks in the UK are experiencing unprecedented demand as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. On this week’s podcast, Ed Thornton speaks to Robin Ferris, the CEO and Founder of Bankuet, an online foodbank donation service. Bankuet enables people to donate to foodbanks without leaving their home, and to buy the items that foodbanks most need. 

Before founding Bankuet, Robin worked in the entertainment industry with companies including Universal Pictures, Island Records and BBC Worldwide. He lives in Hackney and is a part of Kings Cross Church.

At the end of this week’s episode, we hear a sonnet from our Poet’s Corner columnist, Malcolm Guite: For the Unseen, a Sonnet for Carers. Malcolm wrote the sonnet five years ago for a service at Ely Cathedral celebrating the work of carers.

He wrote on his blog this week: “Now in the midst of a pandemic, I send it out again, thinking this time of the myriad care workers, the NHS frontline staff, the neighbours leaving food at doorsteps, the partners and families of those in self-isolation, all who are tending, even from a distance and over a screen to the needs of their loved ones.

“This goes out especially to ‘The patient partners lifting up a cross/to bear the burden their beloved bears’.”

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