A MALDON supermarket has donated more than £2,000 to an organisation helping feed the needy.

Marks & Spencer gifted £2,100 to the Maldon Food Pantry, a food bank supporting people in the area, with money collected from the sales of 5p carrier bags.

Rob Sefton, who runs the pantry based at Maldon Elim Pentecostal Church, in Wantz Road, said the money would make a huge difference.

He said: “Marks & Spencer in Maldon have donated to us £2,100 in cash which is fantastic. It is all money collected from their 5p bags and we want to say a big thank you to them for their donation.

“The shop has helped us in the past. They did a collection in store for us a few months back and raised more than £1,000 then, and have named us their charity of the year for this year.

“What we do is collect food to make food parcels for those in need in Maldon and the surrounding area.

“Often we run out of items to fill the food bags with, but what this money does is allow us to restock our supplies so that we can continue to help people.”

The food bank is currently seeing one of its busiest summers in its six years of operating, as they help people from all walks of life, from people living on their own, to single mums and young families.

Rob explained: “Unfortunately, the food bank is doing very well, there are a lot of people still coming here. We are seeing on average 20 people each week, when we hand out the parcels on a Wednesday.

“Normally during the summer months the amount of people goes down significantly, but for this year, for some unknown reason, it has stayed the same from the winter right through.

“I think until the government at national or local level actually concentrate on the reasons people are using food banks, and put their full effort into helping people on a long term basis rather than a short term basis, it is not going to get any better.

“We have been running for six years now and have handed out more than 7,500 food parcels in that time, which I think shows the scope of the problem.”

Ivonne Faithful, from Marks & Spencer, said: “Every year we nominate a local charity to fundraise for and this year we settled on the food bank to be the beneficiary.

“We have been donating all of our leftover food to the group as well to try and help them out wherever possible. We are delighted to be able to hand over this money.”