Burngreave Foodbank has seen a decrease in donations and an increase in referrals over the past year and say they fear for the future if it continues down this path.
Rachel Snow, Foodbank administrator at Burngreave, on Spital Hill, says the use of food banks has doubled from last year.
She said: “We now buy in 60% of our stock, donations are dropping. It’s just not sustainable.”
She said as the cost of living crisis continues, people are less able to give to food banks, but their demand is only increasing.
Ms Snow added: “People just can’t get back on their feet. They can end up using food banks for years when they were only designed to be a short term solution.
“Food banks used to be a last resort, you would see a family coming in three time a year, now you see them weekly.”
Trevor, 57 has been using Burngreave Foodbank for the last 8 months.
He said: “My phone went down for 3 weeks and I couldn’t get a referral code to get my parcel so I just had no food for three weeks. I had to manage off of the reduced food in Tesco when I could afford to.
“Without the food bank I don’t know what I would do.”
Burngreave Foodbank is part of a a national network supported by the Trussell Trust.
The Trust found a staggering 2,986,203 emergency food parcels were distributed by food banks from their network between April 2022 and March 2023.
This is more than double the amount distributed from the same period 5 years ago.
December 2022 was recorded as the busiest month ever, with one parcel being distributed every 8 seconds.
These statistics come after the government introduced the Household Support Fund which aimed to combat these issues, which was set to end on March 31 but has been extended by the chancellor for another six months.
Volunteers at Burngreave Foodbank worry this will not be enough with the current state of nation.