York's new food bank asks for supermarket donations
A charity has urged people in York to donate items from their supermarket shop to a new food bank.
The York Foodbank, based at the Gateway Church in Acomb, has been set up in partnership with the Trussell Trust.
Manager Caleb Ellwood said staff regularly met people across York in "emergency crisis situations" who need this sort of help.
A team of volunteers is currently collecting food from shoppers at Morrisons, Acomb, throughout Wednesday.
'People going hungry'
Mr Ellwood said: "It's not about long-term dependency. This is about people whose cupboards are bare for all manner of reasons, whether that's sudden unemployment or changes to benefits, any reason like that, somebody who just has nothing in their cupboards."
There is already one food bank in York run by the Salvation Army, which said in June that the number of food parcels it was distributing had risen by 40%, compared to 2011.
Chris Mould, Executive Chairman of the Trussell Trust, said it was opening three new food banks a week at the moment.
He said: "Reality is reality. There are people going hungry, thousands of them, in this nation, and the situation is getting significantly worse.
"Over the last few years because of the recession more people are facing difficulties with employment, low wages and in the last five years food prices have gone up dramatically."