Donations of fresh food from Tesco for food bank
A CROSS Hands food bank is using donations of fresh food from Tesco to help even more people in need across the local community.
Impact 242 Cross Hands Foodbank was set up in under 24 hours in late March in response to the coronavirus lockdown.
It aims to help those in need across the community, including families, people whose income has stopped or dropped due to redundancy, or furloughing.
Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the group, which is based at Cross Hands Public Hall and Cinema, has seen huge demand in recent weeks and the food bank is now open an extra day a week.
Parcels are delivered to the community every Tuesday, Thursday and Friday.
Reverend Victoria Jones, from the organisation, said: “We don’t have any strict criteria for people to use the food bank - we just want to help anyone that needs it, no questions asked.
“Demand is extremely high and it’s increasing all the time.
“In just four weeks, we’ve helped feed 662 people thanks to the donations of surplus fresh fruit, vegetables and bakery items.
“We collect from Tesco stores in Carmarthen, Llanelli and Pontarddulais and we have been overwhelmed with how amazing the staff have been.
“We are incredibly thankful for what Tesco is doing to help us at this uncertain time.
“It means we’re able to go on supporting our local communities and making sure no one goes hungry.”
Impact 242 Cross Hands Foodbank is just one of thousands of food banks, charities and community groups across the UK being supported in their work amid the Covid-19 crisis thanks to donations from Tesco.
In addition to its usual supplies of surplus food to charities and community groups, Tesco is providing an additional £15 million of food to support charities supplied by FareShare and food banks that are part of the Trussell Trust’s network.
Already 122 trucks full of Tesco food donations have been delivered to the two charities, with more than 30 tonnes of food being delivered to FareShare Cymru South Wales to support 64 charities with 72,621 mealsworth of food, and enough long-life food to provide almost 1,000 meals for people in crisis being supplied to local Trussell Trust food banks each week.
Sarah Germain, project manager at FareShare Cymru, South Wales, said the additional donations from Tesco were making a huge difference to charities and community groups which receive supplies from them.
She added: “We are immensely thankful to Tesco for their continued support during the coronavirus pandemic. Many of the frontline charities we work with continue to provide essential support within their communities, and the additional donations from Tesco will help us to keep up a steady supply of food to them during this difficult time.”