The Rainbow Centre in Scarborough has launched its annual Harvest Festival appeal, this year reaching out to local businesses and community groups to act as collection points amidst rising demand for its food bank services.
The appeal, which will run for the duration of October, is collecting tins, jars, and dry goods to help stock up on essential supplies for local people in need. James Howard, Fundraising Officer at The Rainbow Centre, explained that the need for donations has become critical.
"Oh, it's massive, it's gone up so much the amount of people that are coming into the town and needing stuff.
And the food bank has been subsidized for quite a while through the Rainbow Centre, and we're having to pay money ourselves to stock the shelves.
And that's through no fault of people not donating necessarily, we understand times are hard.
Something like this that's got a big drive like the Harvest Festival, it's a great opportunity for the community to come together and really look after us for the coming months.
We'd like an amount to get us over Christmas and into the, into spring, where we can still have that backlog of stuff that we can reach back on and donate to people and give out to people when they need it."
While the centre has traditionally received strong support from schools and churches during its Harvest Festival collections, this year's initiative aims to broaden the network of support. The centre has invited local businesses, sports clubs, gyms, and other community groups to run their own in-house collection appeals.
"We've started it now and it'll be running for the duration of October
We've always collected Harvest Festival every year, we go through the schools and the churches, we get all kinds of items popped in, from what people have collected.
But this year we're trying to reach out to businesses and clubs within the area and hopefully we're going to get a good response.
There'll be plenty of places around the town that will be collecting for us.
We've also got people that are going to be going out as, as well as ourselves to collect, and anything that people can afford to give and donate would be brilliant, we understand that times are hard and that's why we're doing it anyway.
So anything is a bonus."
The goal of the appeal is to gather enough supplies to support individuals and families through the coming months, particularly over the Christmas period and into the spring.
The Rainbow Centre has already seen an "incredible response" to its appeal. A list of participating organisations includes a diverse range of local businesses and clubs, from accountants and security firms to football clubs and yoga studios.
The centre emphasises that every donation, regardless of size, makes a significant impact on the families and individuals it supports.
There are more details about the appeal at https://therainbowcentre.org/news/rainbow-centre-harvest-festival/
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