Food bank donations praised by TV presenter
TV presenter Simon Reeve has thanked “angels” for donating enough money to keep the Transformation Camborne, Pool and Redruth food bank operating for five years.
Simon featured the food bank’s manager Don Gardner in his celebrated ‘Cornwall with Simon Reeve’ documentary on BBC Two, which highlighted the poverty and deprivation which blights the lives of so many people in the Duchy.
Don appeared in an emotional interview with Simon the day before his wife Jen’s funeral in August. Since the programme was aired in November, Don and his team have received £280,000 in donations – enough to keep the charity running for five years.
Simon tweeted on social media: “Good to hear this before Christmas! You angels. Hugs to Don and all at #Camborne #foodbank. Good luck also to Lee Trewhela and Cornwall Live with their ongoing #UnseenCornwall campaign.”
WMN sister website Cornwall Live has been running the campaign to highlight and help tackle poverty and deprivation in Cornwall.
Don told Cornwall Live: “It’s been unbelievable. I woke up to 300 emails on the morning after the programme was shown; one person even donated £20,000 and we’ve had promises of money from all over the country and as far away as Spain and France.
“We’ve had people asking us if they can donate their winter fuel allowance. A man phoned up and said: ‘I’ve been coming to Cornwall for 25 years and I didn’t know there was poverty like that, so I want to send you my holiday money’. I joked: ‘I hope he had a big holiday planned’!”
Jen and Don started the food bank together at the height of the financial crisis of 2008. He said: “I thought we’d only have to do it for a couple of years, to solve the problem during that difficult period, but here we are now.”
When the food bank launched, it provided 72 meals in its first month. In October this year, a staggering 14,300 meals were handed out to between 400 and 500 families. In total, it donated 26,000 meals during the first lockdown.