Plea for ‘No Easter eggs just essentials’ from food banks as demand to support people in need continues to rise in Yorkshire

Posted by rob smyth | Published: 08/04/2020

‘No Easter eggs just essentials’ is the plea from food banks as donations continue to fall and demand spike due to the impact of the Coronavirus in Yorkshire.

Food banks across the country have urged kind-hearted people looking to donate in the run up to Easter not to hand over sweet treats but instead to focus on the vital food and essentials needed to create much-needed support packages for people in need at this time.

People looking to make a difference this Easter can make a donation to their local food bank by visiting their nearest Central England Co-op food store and dropping an item or two into special collection points.

Donations will be collected up from Central England Co-op stores and used to create food parcels, which contain around 11 items and will provide at least three days’ worth of meals for those in need.

Items needed for the food bank appeal include cereal, tinned food and fruit, tea bags, dried pasta, rice, long life milk, sugar, biscuits, fruit juice and squash, pasta sauce and instant coffee.

Food banks being supported by this appeal in Yorkshire include The Welcome Centre, based in Huddersfield.

Emma Greenough, from the Welcome Centre, in Huddersfield, said: “Ideally we do not want Easter eggs. Instead we want practical items such as tinned meals would be great. We also need tinned fruit, tinned veg, tinned spuds, instant mash, and microwave rice.”

This comes after kind-hearted communities donated over 30,000 items to Central England Co-op’s urgent food bank appeal in less than two weeks.

On average, food banks are seeing a 50% fall in donations coupled with a 100% rise in requests for food parcels with new enquiries coming from people who are self isolating, self employed and families who have children that would normally be getting free school meals.

People can keep up to date with how Central England Co-op is responding to the Coronavirus by visiting www.centralengland.coop/updates