Donated food will feed thousands of people
New Plymouth’s annual Christmas food drive collected enough food to last until July.
Thousands of food items were generously donated by New Plymouth residents on December 3, which saw more than 200 volunteers running through the streets collecting bags of food.
‘‘We’ve got a lot of food but we have also got a really good range of food,’’ New Plymouth Foodbank manager Sharon Wills explained.
‘‘In previous years, there has been lots of baked beans, lots of spaghetti and lots of tomatoes but, with this year, people have seen the shopping list that we put out and we’ve got a good selection.’’
The collected food filled St Mary’s Peace Memorial Hall and took a team of volunteers eight hours to sort the items.
Wills said she believed there was more food collected than last year, by a smidge, and it could last seven months.
‘‘We don’t know what the demand is going to be. We could have the same number of people coming as last year, which is going to be over 5000 by the time we finish at the end of this month. We still rely on people bringing in stuff.’’
Wills said she was thankful for all the volunteers involved, as well as police officers and companies that supplied vehicles.
‘‘The volunteers were amazing, we couldn’t do it without all those volunteers.
‘‘It’s a wonderful place to live with all of those amazing people.’’