Generous shoppers provided Worcester Foodbank with an early Christmas present by handing over more than 5 tonnes of food and festive goodies during a three-day supermarket collection.
Volunteers at the Tesco stores in St Peter’s and Warndon were swamped with donations of urgently needed food and toiletries, as well as some festive favourites like mince pies and cake that will bring joy to hundreds of hungry foodbank clients this Christmas.
A team of Tesco staff will now help foodbank volunteers sort through the 400 crate-loads of stock that will provide about 5,000 meals to people that cannot afford to feed themselves this winter.
Grahame Lucas, Worcester Foodbank manager, said: “We’d like to say thank you to everyone who supported us – the spirit of generosity in this city is quite extraordinary.”
“Once again we had some people donating entire trolley-loads of items. I also love the story of one man who filled up three carrier bags at the checkout before removing his sandwiches and handing over everything else to our volunteers.”
The donations will help to replenish the charity’s stock levels as it battles to keep up with a growing number of referrals for emergency food, caused largely by benefit delays and low incomes.
Mr Lucas also praised the team of 80 volunteers who gave up their time to hand out foodbank shopping lists to customers, as well as the warm welcome and support of Tesco staff at the stores.