A FOODBANK which has helped the people of Queensbury since the first year of the pandemic will celebrate its expansion as a community hub by moving to a new building this week.

Mobeen Hussain, who is the founder of the We Are Queensbury Foodbank, is celebrating this Tuesday's grand opening of the We Are Queensbury Foodbank and Community Hub by moving to a new building on Chapel Street, Queensbury.

The 'community hub' has been added to the foodbank and Mobeen and his team provide a number of other services that help people with financial advice and find employment.

The foodbank had been operating out of Mobeen's business, GDPR Tuition, on High Street, Queensbury, but he said the foodbank/community hub needed to find a home of its own.

Mobeen is pleased with the new location, saying: "It's worked out really well. We have it all kitted as a foodbank.

"It's a sustainable walk-in foodbank and community hub.

"It's been a rocky road to get here but we've managed to tap into some funding."

Funding has been difficult at times and Mobeen said he has had to pour funds into the foodbank from his own business.

"It's been busy. The ride we've been through has been horrible.

"Some National Lottery funding here and there has helped but there sometimes we've had pennies to run on.

"We started as a foodbank back in November 2020, and the foodbank at its height was providing food for 97 families.

"We didn't know there would be such a high demand.

"Now it's in the fifties as we've worked to get 29 people back into employment."

Mobeen said a lot of people using the foodbank are new families.

Mobeen, who is a qualified employment advisor, and his team do a number of things to help community hub users.

"We have qualified advisors to help people with their benefits, housing and looking for jobs.

"We look long-term at getting people back into employment.

"We look at the positives and try to use pro-active ways to help people build their skills.

"The beauty is when people have found work they come back and donate to the foodbank."

Although the number of families had been dropping, Mobeen has noticed an increase in users in the past three weeks.

"With the rise in energy prices and an increase in National Insurance and taxes, come April I'd bet my bottom dollar more people will need our services.

Tuesday's grand opening runs from 10am to 2pm.