DROITWICH'S Foodbank has received a £5,000 boost to help continue feeding local people in need.

The donation was provided this week by the Santander Foundation, which offers grants to UK registered charities for projects that help disadvantaged people in local communities.

Droitwich Spa Foodbank, which is currently based in the Old Library Centre but is moving to the Baptist Church from the start of November, provides emergency food parcels for people experiencing a temporary financial crisis.

David Stanbury, project leader at the foodbank, said: "The grant will assist with the charity’s operational costs as well as providing advice and support to people referred by care professionals.

“This is a wonderful donation. It will help a great deal with meeting our expenses and allow us to continue to help the increasing number of people facing a crisis in our community.

"The public support for our foodbank has been amazing, in terms of time given to volunteer, food donated by the general public, by churches and by local schools — a number of these have donated harvest goods recently — and money. The foodbank has now been running for 15 months and in that time has been able to support just over 1,000 people."

The foodbank is run by the Trussell Trust, which runs a number of foodbanks around the country.

Maria Grocott, branch manager at Santander’s Droitwich branch said: “The Santander Foundation makes hundreds of donations every year to good causes throughout the UK. Our branch is committed to playing a key part in the community and we are delighted to be supporting Droitwich Spa Foodbank and hope the donation makes a real difference to local people.”

The Santander team who helped raise the funds include Maria Grocott, Susan Tewzini, Katie Page, Leta O'Connor and Jane Thompson.

The donation comes less than a month after your Droitwich News reported on the fact that the foodbank has seen a huge increase in demand over the last three months.

Between July 2014 and March 2015, the food bank fed 512 people. But demand has increased and in just five months, from April 2015 to mid-September, the food bank has fed 436 people, averaging about 100 people per month.