Welcome helping hand for foodbank team

JUDITH TONNER

Airdrie foodbank received a welcome and much-needed donation from Friends of Airdrie and Coatbridge Islamic Centre to top up their supplies.

Kind- hearted representatives of the centre handed over 300 kilograms of supplies to the local charity following successful collections.

The boost came at an opportune time, with the Advertiser having told last month how the foodbank’s stock had reached “dangerously low” levels, including completely running out of items including tinned vegetables and fruit.

Foodbank volunteer Fiona Curtis said: “Demand is probably up by about 30 per cent; this is probably the worst I’ve seen it in my fourand-a-half years.

“It’s hard to plan ahead because you can think you’re going to be busy and it’s quiet, and vice versa – we’ve definitely given out much more this summer and some days are really busy.

“This week we had to buy in shopping for the week; we have very little money to do that but we had absolutely no tinned fruit or vegetables at all.”

Airdrie foodbank has supplied parcels to help more than 1200 adults and 600 children in the three months since May, and its volunteers say demand has been at “all-time high” over the summer period.

They are asking generous local residents to help restock their shelves with their most- needed items of tinned tomatoes, meat, fish, rice pudding, fruit and vegetables; plus pasta sauce, UHT milk, long-life fruit juice, tea and coffee.

Donations can be handed in to the foodbank’s collection point at Tesco in Airdrie, or at Calderbank Parish Church on Mondays and St Edward’s Church in Gartlea on Wednesdays; while large collections, such as those from businesses, can be uplifted by volunteers.

Pictured ( l- r) are Christopher Khan, Fiona Curtis and Islamic Centre representatives Karen Ormond and Razia Khan.