NEARLY 200 boxes of food, and more than £300 in cash was collected at the Crediton Tesco Wellparks store during a recent Crediton Community in Action Food Collection.

This was split between three local charities, The Crediton Foodbank, The Amber Foundation at Chawleigh and The Gilead Foundation at Okehampton.

Crediton Tesco’s Community Champion, Andrew Drayton said: "A huge thank you to every customer who donated. However large or small, every can of food makes a difference to someone who needs food at this time of year.

"The Gilead Foundation said that it was, by far, the largest food donation they had ever received and Crediton Foodbank were also delighted because they received all the food they needed.

"A huge thank you also to the groups that helped; The Rotary Club of Crediton Boniface, Crediton & District Lions Club, The Crediton Foodbank, Crediton Girl Guides and The Turning Tides Project - without them all this would not have been possible.

"It was a real community effort."

Dorothy Cornick of Crediton Foodbank said: "People have been looking after the Foodbank really well.

"We had a list of things that we specifically needed and received those from the Food Collection.

"We are currently concentrating on collecting for Christmas hampers and I would like to thank people for their generosity."

A number of local groups helped with the collection and Hazel Evely of Crediton & District Lions Club said: "We are supporting the food collection and had someone at the Tesco store throughout the event."

Nick Yarnold and Paul Fallon of the Rotary Club of Crediton Boniface were at the food collection and said that the role of Rotary was to help the community.

Rotary will also be helping The Amber Foundation separately, as well as supporting St Petrock’s, and the Ovarian Cancer charity.

The Amber Foundation centre manager Kim, said: “We are overwhelmed by the generosity of all the people from Crediton who donated this food, we also want to say a big thank you to Tesco for organising this.

"We received lots of staple ingredients such as pasta and rice, which help us to keep our residents fed on a day-to-day basis.

"Many of our residents stay with us over Christmas as they don’t have anywhere to go and these food donations mean the world to them.

"It helps to show them that there are people out there who care about them and their wellbeing, and that they haven’t been forgotten.

"These kind donations will enable us to provide our residents with a few of the seasonal treats that we all like to enjoy over the festive period such as biscuits, mince pies and chocolates - Thank you.”