The Trafford Centre joined FareShare Greater Manchester and Marcus Rashford’s campaign to help feed thousands more vulnerable children and families across our region.
Since 24 October, FareShare Greater Manchester volunteers manned the deck of The Orient food court, collecting non-perishable food items from generous customers, retailers and staff.
These were then distributed to food banks, community groups, activity schemes and schools, supporting families across Greater Manchester.
Zoe Inman, Centre Director at The Trafford Centre, said: “The Trafford Centre sits at the heart of the community and is well-known to everyone across Greater Manchester, so we wanted to do our bit by using our platform to support FareShare Greater Manchester and the incredible work they do.
“We’ve had hundreds of generous donations from our customers and our retailers, demonstrating amazing community spirit and enabling FareShare Greater Manchester to continue to help so many local families who need support.”
With the coronavirus pandemic pushing thousands of people into financial hardship FareShare has seen demand for food skyrocket.
Miranda Kaunang, Head of Development at FareShare Greater Manchester, said: “We’ve been overwhelmed at the fabulous support people from across Greater Manchester have given to FareShare in response to Marcus Rashford’s campaign. We’re so grateful to The Trafford Centre team for organising this collection, and to everyone who has kindly made a donation to our appeal – it’s needed now more than ever.
“Demand for food from those experiencing financial hardship increased threefold during lockdown, and the majority of the organisations we partner with to distribute food to those who need it most anticipate that demand will increase over the winter further still. This fantastic appeal from The Trafford Centre will enable us to feed even more local people who need support. Thanks again to everyone who has kindly donated.”
During lockdown, in Greater Manchester alone, FareShare distributed nearly 1,000 tonnes of food to those who need it most.
The charity recently gave Marcus Rashford and his mum Melanie Maynard a tour of their new warehouse in Manchester which has been taken on to respond to Covid-19. The new facility will be named after Melanie, in honour of the work Marcus has done to raise awareness of food poverty in the UK.
An appeal has been launched to fund the refurbishment of the building to ensure it can enable the FareShare GM team to treble the amount of food distributed to vulnerable families and individuals in the region. Donations to help them meet this demand can be made at www.faresharegm.org.uk
