BAE Systems has donated £30,000 to Barrow Foodbank, which will help to provide essential food and support to people in crisis.
Neil Doherty, senior management advisor corporate social responsibility at BAE Systems’ Barrow submarines site, said: “Supporting causes in our local community is at the heart of our community investment programme and is hugely important to our employees.
“This has been a year like no other and we’re doing what we can to support those most in need.
“We’re very proud to support Barrow Foodbank and the fantastic work they do.”
Claire Coulthurst, project manager at Barrow Foodbank, said: “We are very grateful for any donations we receive at Barrow Foodbank, as a community project we are always so well supported and the food donations never falter, money donations are also vital for us to operate.
“This year has been a particularly tough year for us with the pandemic, we saw a 280 per cent increase in the need for our service, combined with 80 per cent of our volunteer force needing to shield or isolate.
“We were very lucky to have a whole bunch of new volunteers step in and join us who were able to help us carry on providing our service and we have remained open every working day throughout the pandemic providing emergency food parcels to those in need.
“We also had to adapt the way we operate and create a delivery service, all of which was very new to us and comes at a cost. We are already in the midst of what are normally our busiest months of the year, in November alone we fed 411 people, of those 166 were children.
“December’s figures aren’t all in but I can tell you we have been very busy and we anticipate that the effects of COVID will only increase the demand on the foodbank moving forward in 2021.
“BAE Systems’ continued support is greatly appreciated.”
