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Daily urges readers to back summer food bank campaign

Summer BitesA regional daily has urged readers to support their local food banks at their “time of greatest need”.

The Lancashire Post’s Summer Bites campaign is encouraging readers to donate to food banks over the school summer holidays.

Staff at Preston’s Salvation Army food bank are expecting to hand out more parcels than normal over the next five to six weeks.

The campaign has been backed by the Trussell Trust, which runs more than 400 food banks throughout the UK.

Captain Alex Cadogan, of the Salvation Army in Preston, told the Post: “We see a greater demand for family food parcels in the summer than we do in the Christmas period.

“Summer is usually a time when donations to the food bank are quite low, so it’s a perfect storm in some respects.”

David McAuley, Trussell Trust chief executive, added: “Families who rely on free school meals during term time can find themselves facing hunger in the school holidays, when there is an extra financial pressure to provide main meals.

“No one knows the full scale of hunger in the school holidays yet, but these figures make one thing clear, many families are closer to crisis than we think.

“It should be a wake-up call to us all that so many children will have a parent expecting to skip a meal or more this summer so they can feed the family.”

In May, the Liverpool Echo relaunched its Share Your Lunch campaign with the aim of helping parents living in poverty to feed their children during the summer holidays.