Put helping foodbank on your shopping list

Leading food charities the Trussell Trust and FareShare are appealing to Express readers to volunteer to help in the UK’s biggest food collection.

They will be collecting food in Tesco stores during the annual Tesco Food Collection.

They are looking for Renfrewshire volunteers to encourage shoppers to donate, so that as much food as possible can be collected.

During the collection customers will be encouraged to donate long-life food to help foodbanks and community groups support people in need at Christmas.

Tesco will top up customer donations by 20 per cent to further support the two charities.

Elizabeth Alexander, boss of Renfrewshire Foodbank, said: “We will be in all three Tesco stores in Renfrew, Paisley and Linwood over three days.

“What we do is ask people when they arrive if they would like to help and if they say yes we give them a shopping list of what we need.

“They then give it to us when they leave. “We particularly need long-life juice, tinned potatoes, tinned fish, tinned tomatoes and tinned fruit.

“We would also be grateful for toiletries.”

Emma Revie, chief executive at The Trussell Trust, said no one should need a foodbank at any time of year.

“But we know during the lead-up to Christmas our network of foodbanks see even more people needing help,” she added.

“Foodbanks will be doing all they can to provide vital emergency support so people don’t face hunger this Christmas.

“To make sure there are enough donations, we need your support.

“Having your support in this year’s Tesco Food Collection will make a real difference – the more people who volunteer, the more food will be collected from generous shoppers, and the better prepared foodbanks will be to help local people.”

Last year, 3.5 million meals were collected as part of the Tesco Food Collection, and since its launch in 2012, more than 50 million meals have been donated to the two charities by Tesco customers.

To make this year’s collection a success volunteers are needed to hand out shopping lists to customers, and to encourage people to donate.

Anyone interested in volunteering can find out more and sign up at www. fareshare/tescofoodcollection

The food collection will take place from Thursday, November 21, until Saturday, November 23.