A mum who appealed for penne pasta so she can feed her autistic son during the coronavirus pandemic was left overwhelmed by the responses.
Tabatha Stirling, from Leith in Edinburgh, was unable to find any pasta for her 12-year-old son Teddy, who has Asperger's and a selective eating condition, due to panic-buyers emptying supermarket shelves.
Teddy's condition is common in autistic children and means that certain colours, textures and smells can put them off eating, Edinburgh Live reports.
Tabatha said she was initially not worried about panic-buyers stockpiling certain long life items but only realised the extent when she tried to go shopping herself:
She said: “It really ramped up this week, I took my 5 year old after school to Sainsbury’s and it was shocking.
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“That really nailed it down, there was an older lady that passed me and she said this is like when the war was on and there was rationing, but there was more food on the shelves during the war than now.”
So Tabatha took to Twitter to ask if anyone could help her as she faced concerns over how she was going to feed her son, tweeting:
“Hello, does anyone have penne pasta?
"My son is autistic and has very restricted eating. Penne is the only pasta he ‘can’ eat.
After just a short while, the online community both on Twitter and Facebook showed support for Tabatha’s request, resulting in her receiving more than 200 messages and tweets of generous offers.
Donors included restaurant chain Prezzo who invited Tabatha to visit their Edinburgh branch for a bag.
Tabatha said: “I’ve had four packets sent to my house already and there seems to be more to come. Some people just found me on Facebook and said ‘I’ve got two packets they’re yours’.
“I’m so grateful and appreciative, it shows that social media can be used for the power of good.”
She added: “I was so appreciative and it shows now things like autism are taken very seriously, nowadays it is clearly being seen as being important to support.
“In a crisis the good and the bad come out but the good always comes out stronger, which is lovely if you’re on your own, having strangers looking out for you.”
