I reached out to a food bank after losing everything – it changed my life forever

It was the beginning of 2014. Normally, I would use this time to reflect on the year just gone – what had gone well, what hadn’t worked out as hoped – but the past year had been nothing short of a nightmare.

We had recently sold our house and moved back from the New Forest in Hampshire. My wife Debbie and I talked about investing some of the proceeds of the house, into a business – something that would give us the flexibility to help care for our granddaughter, who was now living with us.

In early 2013, we had come across a restaurant for lease in Warwick. On paper, it looked perfect – great reputation, prime location, everything you could want. With both of us having backgrounds in hospitality, it seemed like a safe bet.

We opened the 70-seater restaurant just down the road from Warwick Castle. What began as a dream quickly spiralled into a nightmare. The business imploded. By the end of the year, we were completely and utterly broke. We had geared the restaurant to operate at a certain level: 14 staff members, open seven days a week, with Debbie and I covering alternating shifts. We worked our socks off. We cleaned and repaired the building, bought new equipment – including a £10,000 state-of-the-art oven – and put in every conceivable hour. We served customers, pulled pints, hoovered and mopped floors, emptied bins, did cash-and-carry runs, and wrestled with the endless admin, bookkeeping, policies, procedures, licences, safety tests… and then there was the staffing.

I was quickly beginning to hate the place.

It felt as though the building had taken over my life. Each night I’d cash up, knowing we hadn’t made enough to cover the day’s outgoings – so I would pour a drink. I’d drive home with an unfinished bottle of wine, crawl into bed around 3am and sleep until the alarm jolted me awake at 7.30am. Groundhog Day. Again!

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Week after week, we pulled more money from the house sale to feed the business – this ravenous monster that devoured everything we had. No matter how hard we tried, it was never enough.

By December, everything we had worked for lay in ruins. We were dead in the water. The realisation dawned on us, we knew that we couldn’t go on, all the surplus money from the house sale was gone, there was nothing left… It was a bitter pill to swallow, this monster had robbed us blind. I had been so naïve, it was the lowest point in my life! How do I come back from here? What’s going to happen to us?

Once we had made the decision to close the restaurant, it was like a weight had been lifted from me, but it didn’t last long. The phone calls started, angry, abusive, hostile even threatening.

My phone rang constantly with calls from creditors, all asking the same question: “When will we be paid?” Our collapse wasn’t quiet or private – it was dramatic and painfully public. Friends and family remained supportive, but we were in a desperate situation. Things went from bad to worse when I went to sign on at the Jobcentre and was told I’d been paying the wrong class of National Insurance. I wasn’t even eligible to sign on.

No money. No income. No job.

Eventually, I found myself doing something I never thought I would: I picked up the phone and called Coventry Foodbank.

The call was answered by Gavin Kibble, the charity’s founder. We had been mutual acquaintances, and he’d already heard something of our misfortune. Gavin invited me to the food bank office. I arrived, nervous and uncertain of what to expect.

We sat down over a cup of coffee, and I poured my heart out – everything that had happened, everything we had lost.

He listened quietly, then gently said: “The food bank will support you with food until you’re back on your feet.”

Just hearing those words made me swallow hard. There it was… hope. What had been missing for so long was suddenly on the horizon. Hope that things could get better. Hope that change was possible.

And, in time, it did get better.

Gavin asked me if I’d consider volunteering at the food bank. I was hesitant at first – what I really needed was a job. But I said yes, and what followed was nothing short of life-changing. Volunteering turned out to be incredibly rewarding, I loved what the food bank was doing.

For me, the food parcels, the small payments I received for running the work club – every little bit of support, helped us stay afloat. Then, in August of that year, the project manager role became available. I applied, interviewed, and to my amazement, I got the job.

Ten years later, I’m still here – still loving what we do. We offer more than just a bag of food. We offer a bag of hope.

Hope that things will improve. Hope that life will get better. And for me it has.

With that hope comes healing and restoration. Coventry Foodbank helped change my life. And as I speak with other food bank managers from across the country, I hear story after story of transformation and renewed hope.

My dream was always to serve people food and get paid for it at my own restaurant. Now, I serve people food knowing it meets a basic human need – and that brings me even greater fulfilment.

Food banks can only exist because of the generosity of the public. If you’re able, please consider supporting your local food bank. You never know the difference your donation could make – it might just change a life.

Hugh McNeill is project manager at the Pathfinder project at Coventry Foodbank, funded by Trussell, which provides a lifeline to thousands of food bank users in the city.

The service, based at Coventry Foodbank’s headquarters in Binley, works with partners to offer practical and financial support, and has gone on to make a huge impact on reducing the number of local food bank users from 30,000 to 21,000 a year. But as funds are set to run out, they need help. To enquire about funding or how else you can help, contact Hugh at hugh@feedthehungry.org.uk or visit the Coventry Foodbank website.

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