FOODBANKS in Burnley and Pendle have seen an almost 300 per cent rise in the number of requests for help over the past year.

A number of foodbanks have been set up as more and more people struggle to meet weekly food bills.

One bank is struggling so much for donations that the organiser visits a supermarket once a week to personally encourage shoppers to buy an extra item.

Community Solutions runs a foodbank which covers most of East Lancashire and does lots of work in Burnley.

Genevieve Waite, of Community Solutions, said: “In 12 months, we have seen a 277 per cent increase in referrals to our foodbank.

“That is across East Lancashire but it is around the same in Burnley and Pendle.

“We have 130 partner agencies which refer to us, such as local authorities or community centres.

“We also have drop-off points in Burnley and Pendle and we get a good number of donations.

“Demand is growing but we are lucky we have a community keen to help.”

She said they were handing out around 200 parcels a week, plus another 20 emergency ones.

A number of local shops and churches have drop-off points for the Community Solutions foodbank, including the Life Church in Sycamore Avenue, Burnley.

In Pendle, the community is being asked to and support St Philip’s Grass-roots Centre in Nelson which opens its foodbank, open every Monday morning.

Organiser Sam Ogden said: “Demand has gone up quite a lot since we started about a year ago.

“We don’t get many people coming in with donations . We usually have to go out and find it.

“We’ve done a lot more advertising recently and every Friday I go into Morrisons and ask people to buy one extra item.

“The foodbank runs every Monday morning, but people can only get one package every six weeks unless they are in desperate need.

“We get a wide cross-range of people really. We’ve got ex-soldiers, people on disability benefit who have had to wait for the benefit to swap over, all sorts really.”

The Raft Foundation runs a Rossendale foodbank, with drop off locations in a number of churches and shops across the borough, as well as Tesco in Haslingden.

More than 1,000 hungry kids fed since foodbank opened

GENEROUS donors helped the Blackburn foodbank collect more than four tonnes of food as part of a nationwide drive.

Volunteers manned collection points at Hill Street Tesco, Blackburn, and Queen Street Tesco, Great Harwood, as well as the Tesco Metro store in the town centre.

According to Foodbank volunteers, the donations could not have come at a better time because the Brunswick Street foodbank was down to its last half a tonne.

It has now fed more than 1,000 children since it opened with seven tonnes of food nine months ago.

Ros Duerden, project manager at Blackburn Foodbank said: “It is quite poignant that we collected so many donations just as we were finding out we had fed more than 1,000 children.”

Tesco stores all over the North West collected food last weekend.

Food donated to Burnley stores was collected by national foodbank charity FareShare.
In Clitheroe, Tesco collected 1.75 tonnes for the town’s new food-bank which opened this week.