Telford pop up drive-through food donation point hailed as community triumph

Twenty volunteers turned a pub car park into a drive-through food donation centre for a day to support people who are suffering in lockdown conditions.

The Woolpack in Shawbirch was turned into a donation centre for one day, in an idea inspired by social media.

The volunteers from the Shawbirch, Bratton, Admaston and Wrockwardine Community Help Group said they believed it to be the first event of its kind in the county.

People dropped by the car park, opened their boots remotely and stayed inside while the 20 volunteers unloaded the groceries safely.

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More than 100 cars drove through on the day and enough food was collected to fill six transit vans.

The food is being divided between three food banks across Telford – Telford Crisis Support at Sutton Hill, Dawley Foodbank at Dawley Christian Centre, and the newly-established Community Fridge at Wrekin View Primary School, Wellington.

The help group was set up by resident Debbie Farley in response to the coronavirus crisis, in association with All Saints Church in Wellington.

She said: "I saw the idea on Facebook from another part of the country. David Sims, one of the team at All Saints, had told me about the challenges of maintaining the supply of food to the Telford food banks at the moment, together with the fact that demand for the service has increased by over 70 per cent since January.

"The event was a real success. Everyone in our marvellous community seemed to get behind the whole event to make generous donations to help struggling families.

"It seemed the perfect way to ensure we boosted the supply of food for the food banks while keeping everyone safe. People were encouraged to stay in their cars and open boots from inside so that the volunteers could simply offload and wave the donor off.

“We hope this will make a huge difference to food bank clients. We really want this to become a regular event and are already planning for the end of June.

“This event brought the whole community together – our brilliant volunteers were happy to be part of it; the Woolpack jumped at the chance of loaning us their car park for the day; Al Birch who is also a Blood Bike volunteer came along with his van to move the food to the storage location and everyone who donated got a friendly wave and sent on their way with a smile on their faces for the good deed they had done.

“The best result of all would be to see these events popping up all over the county. Food is obviously absolutely crucial for everyone’s wellbeing and so it is vital that we keep the food supply coming now as people are struggling more now than ever due to the current crisis.”