I have found in life that those who have least are often the most generous towards others in need, and those in Birkenhead are of course no exception.
On Friday I paid a visit to the Tesco Metro store in Rock Ferry. I had the pleasure to see three local schools being awarded brand new equipment under the company’s excellent school voucher scheme.
Talking with Heather Roberts, Tesco’s local community champion, I learned of Rock Ferry’s response to our local food bank’s request for support. Stores all around the country have had food bank volunteers handing out shopping lists of urgent items. Most of the items required are of the long life variety, such as tinned soups, vegetables, meat, as well as milk and mashed potatoes.
Food banks help families through short-term crisis by providing emergency food parcels. Eligible families can be helped on three occasions and there are very exceptional circumstances when additional food parcels will be given.
In Rock Ferry, 220 tonnes of food were donated in a single day by shoppers. Heather was blown away by the generosity of the response. So was I.
Tesco also makes its own contribution. The value of the food is calculated and Tesco adds in an additional 20 per cent.
The Rock Ferry store comes in fifth in the whole country in the generosity stakes. Heather had never seen anything like it in the whole of her life.
Birkenhead continues to surprise. It was a wonderful visit.
back