PCN donates 100 advent calendars to food bank

A PCN in Lancashire has donated 100 Christmas advent calendars to its local food bank.

Led by its social prescriber, Fleetwood PCN, in the Borough of Wyre, donated the advent calendars to help support families and children during the cost-of-living crisis.

Food banks are only able to use their allocated funding to purchase necessities, such as cupboard foods and tinned goods, however, they also accept donations of non-essential foods and toiletries.

Jordana Collinge, the PCN’s care home coordinator and social prescriber, said: ‘I knew I wanted to do something at Christmas, especially with the cost-of-living crisis hitting hard, especially in towns like ours.

‘An advent calendar might only be the tiniest drop in the ocean compared to the people needing actual food to get by, but the small things are so important to young children and it might just help shield them from some of the financial hardship at home.’

According to the Trussell Trust – a charity supporting access to foodbanks – more than 320,000 people in the UK were forced to turn to their food banks for the first time in the six months to September 2022.

Its network of 1,200 foodbanks distributed 1.3 million food parcels to people in need between April and September, marking an increase of 52% on the same period in 2019. Around 500,000 of these were distributed to children.

The Trussell Trust supports foodbanks to provide emergency food to people who have been referred by GPs, social services or schools.

Fleetwood PCN – which consists of Broadway Medical Centre, Fleetwood Surgery and The Mountview Practice – had previously donated nearly 300 Easter eggs earlier this year.