School’s food bank to continue operating due to success
A Black Country school has continued to help disadvantaged families across its community through its food bank.
Beacon Primary School in New Invention in Walsall has worked each year to raise funds for charities such Birmingham Children’s Hospital.
This year, due to the coronavirus pandemic, the headteacher Paul Drew and members of staff were looking for ways to help the community, with Mr Drew talking about how the food bank idea came up.
He said: “Someone said it would be good to donate all the money we usually raise to a food bank and we started discussing who we could donate to.
“I then thought that we have lots of needy parents in our area, so we could start up our own Beacon Food Bank for the people in our community.
“We all donated money towards it and I then sent a letter out to parents saying what we were setting up and asking that if they would to support it, they could make donations towards it.”
The food bank started at the beginning of December, helping an area which sees 60 percent of children receive free school meals.
Mr Drew said there had been an unprecedented level of support for the food bank, with families donating large amounts of pasta, rice, cereals, pasta sauces, biscuits and other products, including sanitary and cleaning products.
He said: “We’ve been able to build up a large bank of stuff that we can continue to grow and add to and we delivered 16 parcels to families around the area on Christmas Eve.
“I can’t thank the families who support the food bank enough for their generosity as the support they’ve given us has been so overwhelming. We have plenty of food left and we intend to keep running the food bank into the new year.”
To find out more and to ask for help email foodbank@beacon.walsall.sch.uk
