Hundreds of children who come through the doors at Newcastle's West End Food Bank will now start the Christmas period with an advent calender - thanks to generous Newcastle United fans.
The call for donations of the chocolate calenders was sounded before the game against Bournemouth, and United fans responded in their hundreds as well as continuing to drop off the usual necessities such as soup, toiletries and cash.
Bill Corcoran, who mans the stand outside of St James' Park every match day, has been left overwhelmed with the number of donations - totalling 650.
That means that every child who use the West End Foodbank - around 450 - will get an advent calender with the leftover ones being passed on to other foodbanks across the region.
Speaking to Chronicle Live, Corcoran said: "We're yet to count the cash donation but we know we've already done well, yet the advent calendar thing I think is special.
"If we're supposed to have a good feeling about our fellow human beings at this time of year, then that's a good reason for it.
"Everybody at Christmas thinks about their families and their friends and they look around and shake hands with their neighbours and smile at people and when you think of children going hungry at Christmas, let alone having presents, let alone having warmth, it's not a nice feeling.
"That means there are little kids who can't afford to go to the match, who don't have that much and aren't going to have much of a Christmas.
"So it's it's one of those things where it's something smaller we can do, and thanks to the networks within the fanbase everybody got together.
"It's the third year we've collected advent calenders and it's been a huge success every time - it just seems to cut through all of the noise and gets straight to the heart of people."
The donation point will be back for the game against Man City on November 30 with people asked to particularly donate items which can be warmed up such as soup.
