Home Bargains has donated food worth £14,500 and other supplies to a Merseyside foodbank to help those in need during the coronavirus crisis.
Knowsley’s foodbank had seen its supplies run low as more and more people found themselves needing support as a result of the pandemic, with the local council making a desperate appeal for donations on Thursday.
In response, the bargain retailer donated enough supplies for 2,500 families across Knowsley, already one of the country’s most deprived boroughs.
Other local businesses also stepped in to ensure the food made it to those families.
Logistics firm Nagel Langdons, based at Knowsley Business Park, agreed to drive the donated supplies to the Big Help Project foodbank warehouse where council staff and foodbank volunteers packaged the food into parcels for families.
Taxi company Supreme Cars has offered to take food parcels to those who need them.
Knowsley Council leader Graham Morgan said: “We all know that it has been a challenge getting items in the shops lately and there have been strict limits on some of the staple items that we’d usually see being donated to foodbanks, such as pasta and tinned items.
“With the amount of people now in desperate need of food and supplies in the borough rising dramatically due to the coronavirus outbreak, it has been a real challenge to source enough supplies to sufficiently top up the stocks at the Foodbank.
“So for Home Bargains to come to the rescue like this – and so quickly and generously – is absolutely incredible. It means we will be able to feed 2,500 families in the coming days.
He added: “We’re so grateful to Home Bargains but also to Nagel Langdons who so kindly collected all the food for us and delivered it to the Foodbank warehouse.
“Now it’ll be our army of council staff and volunteers who’ll be packaging up the items and making sure they get to those who need them – safely and urgently.
“It's a real community and business effort and I’m so proud of everybody for pulling together. It’s a real testament to the spirit of our Knowsley Better Together approach and really proves that, working together, we can actually change or even save lives.”
Cllr Morgan said more help would be needed as the crisis looked set to continue for weeks and called for more donations of food and other essentials to help the borough’s most vulnerable.
