A 97-year-old great-grandmother, believed to be the UK’s oldest foodbank volunteer, has launched a call for more people get involved in the charity.
Veteran Joan Hibberd, is the oldest volunteer with Stretford Foodbank in Manchester , which has just marked a year of collections with a landmark 10,000 meals donated by shoppers.
Joan said: “People are so generous, it’s a great thing to be involved with.”
The mum-of six, who has 13 grandchildren and 17 great grandchildren, thanked shoppers at Stretford Mall for donating more than 4,500 kilos of food, the equivalent of more than 10,000 meals, plus almost £5,000 in monetary donations in 12 months.
Born in 1922, Joan, a regular shopper at Stretford Mall, started volunteering at her local foodbank through her church after losing her husband, Harry, 20 years ago.
She has spent the last six and a half years helping to distribute meals to those in need, after a long career which also included being a mother, a butcher’s assistant in Stretford Market, and a lollipop lady.
Joan was joined by the charity’s youngest volunteer, schoolgirl Grace Connors, 14, to launch an appeal for more volunteers of all ages.
She explained: “Some people have been sleeping on the riverbank and they haven’t even got a tin opener.
A lot of people have got jobs, but they just don’t have enough money to pay their bills and feed their family that week for one reason or another.
I know some people get embarrassed to go into a Foodbank. The first time I volunteered an older man came in, he had passed three times before he plucked up the courage to come in.”
