The Okehampton Foodbank saw donations fall by up to 60 per cent after Christmas and New Year, which made it difficult to provide help to the people in Okehampton who relied on it. 

Okehampton Rotary Club had been providing some aid to the foodbank in the form of vouchers to be used for food shopping but club members realised that in the circumstances a new approach was needed to promote and raise awareness of the foodbank, to try to encourage people to make donations to it.

The idea came from the realisation that while the town supermarkets had had collecting bins in store for some time, they were not seen by shoppers until after they had paid for their shopping. 

The idea was to raise the profile of the foodbank by handing out leaflets at their doors to try to encourage shoppers to purchase food items to donate. 

The initiative was welcomed by the foodbank organisers and so the Co-op and Waitrose supermarkets were contacted and both were very keen to take up the idea.  The rotary club organised a rota of rotary members and with the help of Inner Wheel and foodbank volunteers, covered both stores on Friday and Saturday, July 28 and 29.

The response of Okehampton’s shoppers to the initiative was amazing. The amount of food stuffs donated was beyond any expectations at the outset with over 30 green plastic food trays being filled and taken to the foodbank store at Okehampton Baptist Church. The donations will help the work of the foodbank enormously.

 The rotary club would like to thank Co-op manager Martin Ford, Waitrose’s Will Sharp, and their respective staffs for their help on both days. But most of all we would like to thank the people of Okehampton who have once again risen to the challenge of supporting a good cause. Without your generous donations this fantastic result could not have been achieved.