Charity 'very grateful' for
food bank donation
Written by BY MARK MCKAY (Burton Mail)
NEEDY families in Burton who struggle to make ends meet will benefit after a council donated to a food bank.
Stapenhill Parish councillors donated £120 worth of food to the Salvation Army food bank, in Mosley Street, yesterday morning.
Susan Paxton, chairman of Stapenhill Parish Council, said the parcel will provide much needed to relief to hard up individuals and families in Burton.
She said: “The parish council all agreed on donating a sum to be distributed by the Salvation Army.
“This is a recession which is biting hard on needy families harder than we have ever seen before so you have to think of the plight of people in these hard times.
“Some parishioners also made personal donations and Sainsbury’s supported us by allowing us a discount which allowed us to purchase more.”
Mrs Paxton added that the council would consider making another donation at Christmas.
On Sunday, the United Nations said the number of people using food banks in the UK had sharply increased over the last year.
Vic Wileman, of the Salvation Army, said the number of parcels distributed from the Burton food bank had risen from 28 in January 2012 to 44 in January 2013.
He said: “It might be there is more awareness but there are a lot of changes coming into the benefit structure which can cause short term problems for people.”
Mr Wileman added that the food bank distributed 559 parcels in 2012 with each parcel containing between 30 and 40 items.
He said: “These donations are crucial if I am perfectly honest.
“We provide seven days worth of food in each parcel so we could not make them without these donations.”
Major Jane Morris, of the Burton Salvation Army, said the donation would be ‘a great help’.
She said: “We are very grateful to the people of Burton for all their support.”