Kind-hearted volunteers are being sought in Falmouth and Helston to help with a nationwide food collection to help people in need this Christmas.

Leading food charities FareShare and the Trussell Trust are looking for people to help man donation points at larger Tesco stores from Thursday, November 30 to Saturday, December 2, as part of the Tesco Food Collection.

The annual collection will see Tesco customers encouraged to donate long-life food to help foodbanks and community groups support people in need this Christmas. Tesco will top up customer donations by 20 per cent to further support the two charities in their work.

To make this year’s collection a success volunteers are needed to hand out shopping lists to customers, so they can see the food items needed by foodbanks and community groups in their area, and to answer questions customers have.

Samantha Stapley, operations manager for the Trussell Trust, said: “Foodbanks across the country will be doing all they can to provide emergency support so people don’t go hungry this Christmas, but to make sure everyone referred receives vital help our network needs your support. The more people volunteering with foodbanks at the food collection, the more food will be collected from generous shoppers, and the better prepared foodbanks will be for their busiest time of year.”

Alec Brown, head of community at Tesco, said: “Together we can make a real difference this Christmas through Tesco’s Food Collection scheme. Our customers have been incredibly generous in recent years and with the help of volunteers we hope to collect even more this year to support those who really need it.”

People can find which local stores are supporting FareShare and can sign up to volunteer at fareshare.org.uk/food-collection. Alternatively to find out more about supporting the Trussell Trust, go to trusselltrust.org/food-collection-volunteer.