Aylesbury Vale food bank defends holding funds after donors raise transparency concerns

A food bank in Aylesbury Vale has defended holding onto £8,000 of funds after adults bombarded its teenage founder with “abuse”.

Buckingham Free Meals (BFM) has been accused of a “lack of transparency” by people who have donated to the north Bucks group.

The food bank and community kitchen was set up in 2020 by a 14-year-old boy, who was praised by Manchester United footballer Marcus Rashford for helping families struggling during the pandemic.

However, last week some residents claimed in an open letter that there were ‘widespread concerns within the community’ about the ‘lack of transparency’ over BFM’s finances.

Writing in the letter and on Facebook, people questioned why BFM – which is not a charity – was now “drip-feeding” money they had donated to Buckingham Food Bank and demanded to know how much money BFM had.

It came after the community kitchen announced in late January that it would no longer be able to cook and deliver meals due to it not having a permanent premises and its volunteers returning to work.

The group announced this week that it had set up a standing order to pay Buckingham Food Bank £500 a month and that the first payment was made last week.

BFM’s management team said this will help the food bank buy meat vouchers and prepaid Tesco cards for fresh produce, with the next due on 28 February.

It said: “A larger lump sum was originally proposed, but that was discouraged by the food bank.

“The amount can be reviewed at any time, and if the food bank feel they need more money that can easily be arranged.”

BFM rebuffed the claims around its finances adding that ‘detailed records of all income and expenditure have been kept since day one’ and called on people to instead share its details to ‘other organisations trying to alleviate food poverty’ to widen its efforts further.

Following the row, Buckingham Town Councillor Robina Ahmed defended BFM and its founder, her son Sulayman, who is now aged 17 and still in education.

The councillor, who assisted Sulayman at meetings due to him being a minor, said she was upset at the online “abuse” directed at her son and said that BFM funds had never been kept in either of their personal bank accounts.

She told the Local Democracy Reporting Service: “Grown adults have been sending abuse to my son and I am disgusted by this behaviour. Facebook conspiracy theorists have become judge, jury, and executioner.

“Their abuse is impacting the health and wellbeing of my child and I have suffered extreme distress since realising what has been going on.”

The councillor added that there was a Facebook group “led by a certain individual” in which “numerous accusations and baseless slurs” had been made against her and her son.

Councillor Ahmed said BFM was originally intended to provide hot meals and food donations to those in need in the local community.

At its height, BFM cooked and delivered up to 350 hot meals per week to more than 150 families in total.