Support pours in for town’s needy
WE all try and do our part and help those in need, especially over the festive period.
However, Ammanford has seen people pull out all the stops to help those struggling to put food on the table this Christmas.
Coaltown Coffee Roasters in Foundry Road, has seen a huge outpouring of generosity from the town after it launched a drop off service to help the town’s foodbank.
The highly praised roastery which was founded by Scott James, decided to help Ammanford Foodbank when it made a plea for donations as December approached.
The town and wider community answered the rallying call in droves.
Scott said: “It’s been incredible to see the outpouring of generosity from our community during a very tough time, it makes me very proud to have our business to be based in such a caring town”
Athina Summerbell, sales executive at Coaltown, said: “The response
has been amazing.”
She added: “We launched the drop off scheme, that we called the Christmas Advent Project to help Ammanford Foodbank.
“That was on December 1 and by the December 21 we had 200 kilos of food collected, it’s been amazing.”
Mrs Summerbell went on: “We basically turned our roastery into a place for people to drop off food donations safely and they
have just kept coming.
“It was quite emotional to take all the food over to the foodbank.
“Ammanford has always had a good sense of community but this has been exceptional, no-one said they didn’t want to get involved.
“We had a pensioner come with her shopping caddy full of tinned food for us.
“We’ve even had Christmas presents donated since the Tier 4 lockdown came in.
“With shops closed, people can’t get last minute gifts so easily and so there have been people with spare stocking fillers that have come to us.”
Those who were forced to scale down their Christmas Day plans due to Covid-19 restrictions also came forward with spare food for the collection.
Menawhile the small village of Milo, north of Ammanford, came together as one, with residents co-ordinating their donations before delivering to Coaltown Coffee.
Ammanford Foodbank was then distributing the food packages to those most at need for the festive season.
The advent project complements Coaltown Coffee’s recent status as a B Corp, which means it is part of a growing culture of firms who look at sustainability and value its purpose in the community as much as the profits it makes, striking a balance between them.