A COMMUNITY food hub is seeing increased demand for its services as more and more families struggle to cope with the financial impact of Covid-19. Carlisle s Affordable Food Hub, based at Kingmoor Park, launched in September and to date it has received more than 1,300 orders for parcels of groceries. And despite Cumbria County Council confirming support for free school meals provision for almost 1,200 children over the holidays, the Affordable Food Hub is continuing to see a growing customer base. Lisa Brown, project and campaigns co-ordinator, says job uncertainty and reduced hours is driving more people to turn for help. The numbers keep going up and up. It is steadily but there is no sort of let up in it. There have even been some more emergency food parcel requests, which had sort of died off. People seem to be getting more desperate now, she said.