Food bank thanks Asda Hereford for 'amazing' support

The wonderful team from Hereford Food Bank called in to say thank you to our Hereford store's community champion June Thurston, her colleagues and our generous customers who've helped them provide 85,000 meals during the pandemic.

Over the past 15 months volunteers have regularly collected trolleys full of food and essential items as part of our Fight Hunger Create Change initiative.

Food bank manager Jacquie Alsop says the help she's received from the store has been phenomenal.

She said: "I would personally like to thank June and her Asda colleagues for the amazing support throughout the last year that you have given the food bank and its volunteers.

"The Hereford Food Bank performs an exceedingly important service in our local area, and this year the demands have been quite extraordinary. Yet we have been very well assisted in our local community and we are incredibly grateful to every person and organisation who has supported our community to get through this challenging year.

"Until the start of the pandemic, there were regular collection days at supermarkets, but these had to be stopped. However, most supermarkets either already had collection baskets or introduced them and the donations from local people increased significantly.

"We are extremely grateful for the support received from the colleagues and customers at Asda who have given so generously both food donations and money to enable us to support 4,052 individuals, including 1,505 children, which represents over 85,000 meals. This is an increase of 52 per cent on 2019. During the Christmas period, 49 hampers containing fresh food and gifts provided by the local community were supplied to a further 82 adults and 127 children."

June, pictured here with food bank volunteer Crispin, says she's proud to support the food bank, calling it "one of the most vital parts of my community role."