Red Cross is handing out more and more shopping cards

This article was last updated on July 8, 2024

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Red Cross is handing out more and more shopping cards

Since 2020, the Red Cross has distributed one million shopping cards to people who can no longer pay for their groceries themselves. This assistance was started during the corona pandemic, when more and more people lost income. Consider, for example, self-employed people, but also taxi drivers who could no longer take anyone to a party.

“We then helped people with the idea that the number of requests for help would decrease afterwards, but it only increases,” Nicole van Batenburg of the Red Cross said this morning in the NOS Radio 1 Journaal. “Inflation continues to rise, fixed costs are higher, energy bills are higher, so the money left over for food becomes less and less.”

The shopping card is for people who do not qualify for, for example, the food bank. “Because they earn just too much for that,” says Van Batenburg. “Or because they do not know how to find the authorities or do not have a BSN number, for example. We are really there for people who fall through the cracks everywhere in that respect.”

Hundreds of thousands of households

21.50 euros are added to the card every week, which can be used to buy food in the supermarket and on the market. The aid organization does not know exactly how many people are dependent on the card.

“If you hand out 1 million cards, you know that someone has been helped 1 million times because that person did not have enough money left for food. And we also know from research that at least 450,000 people in the Netherlands live with hidden food shortages. We help a large part of that.”

So far this year, 4,400 households have used the shopping card. Not everyone uses the card for the same amount of time. A card may be used for a maximum of six months. More cards can be distributed per household, depending on the size of the family.