VOLUNTEERS from Highbridge Area Foodbank are encouraging people to leave their donations in the right place after a bag of food donations was ripped open by seagulls.

Earlier this week the foodbank posted a picture on their Facebook page which showed some donated food strewn on the street outside Burnham Methodist Church. 

Maxine Bashford, a volunteer at Highbridge Area Foodbank, said: "It was just one carrier bag of food that had been left outside the Methodist Church sometime over last weekend.

"It looked bad because, amongst other items, the bag contained a lot of pasta and rice that the seagulls ripped open and spread all around. It was a shame the food had been wasted after someone took the trouble to bring it.

"The point of our post was to highlight what had happened and hopefully encourage those wishing to donate to use the three supermarket collection bins or our collection box at 38 Rectory Road in Burnham-on-Sea.

"Donations of food can also now be brought into the BOS Methodist Church Foodbank session on either a Tuesday or Saturday morning.

"The collection points are at Tescos & Lidl in Burnham, Asda in Highbridge, collection box in porch of 38 Rectory Rd in Burnham."

Maxine said the foodbank took in more than 400kg of food from the collection points and 'walk in' donations on Tuesday (July 7) and she is thankful for the community's ongoing support.

"This is a fantastic level of donation from our local community in such challenging times. The use of the foodbank between April and June has doubled from the same period in 2019," Maxine said.

"We have provided three day and in some cases seven day food parcels for over 900 people in this last quarter which could not have been achieved without the support of our community or the dedication of our volunteers working at our foodbank sessions in both Burnham & Highbridge.

"The supermarket collection baskets are really there for in store purchases.

"Food left in the porch collection box at 38 Rectory Road is isolated for a week before being delivered to foodbank.

"We can only accept unopened, in date, non perishable foods. At this time we have large stocks of beans, soup & UHT milk."