The Citizen Feed a Family Appeal reaches £1,200 in a week

GENEROUS Citizen readers have raised more than £1,200 in little over a week to help children in need this Christmas.

Donations have been flooding in for our Gloucester Foodbank Feed a Family appeal.

We are asking readers to donate £1.50 to the charity which makes up parcels of groceries for some of the city's poorest residents.

And people have answered our call with many visiting our offices in The Oxebode to give cash as well as donating online.

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Anneliese Sterry, the Foodbank's manager, said: "We are really surprised at just how generous everyone has been.

"We also have a lot of food donations coming in too. We're struggling to find a place for it all.

"The campaign has definitely helped to raise awareness of what we do."

It comes as Gloucester's Specsavers, in Eastgate shopping centre, backed the appeal by giving away free eye tests for customers who donate money.

The store, which will run the promotion until the appeal ends on December 21, is also going to match the cash raised by staff.

Store director Paul Chessell said: "This charity has really captured the imagination of staff and customers alike."

Gloucester Foodbank said that a £1.50 donation will help them to feed a family of four for three days. Currently, it dishes out about 1.7tonnes of food every month.

This year alone it has helped 2,400 people in the city including 855 children under the age of 16.

It comes as one Dursley mum has urged people to donate to the appeal after she recalled using a similar lifeline in the 1980's.

Jayne was helped by the Dursley Lions back in 1989 when her family was struggling to makes ends meet.

She said: "I had two young children, an ill husband, I was working but it was a huge struggle.

"One day there was a knock at the door and I answered it to find a man standing there with a huge food parcel.

"If it wasn't for that we would have been going cap in hand to relatives."

She added: "I was really embarrassed when I took the handout, but sometimes you have no choice.

"I would definitely ask people to donate. It can make the biggest difference."