Northampton Hope Centre’s fill the box campaign reaches amazing milestone of food staples for 5,500 meals

5,500 meals worth of food has been donated by Northamptonshire businesses for Northampton Hope Centre’s fill the box campaign.

The campaign began last winter, with the charity distributing boxes to local businesses to be filled with food donations.

Kyra Williams, 49, marketing manager for the Hope Centre said: “The amount of people that are needing our services has gone through the roof. We are looking at working people who have never had to use discounted food services like this before.

“I think it's (the campaign) a really good show of our community initiative and shows that people can really come together and support those who need it.”

The charity has nine community larders across the county including three in Northampton town centre.

They distribute food staples for 72,000 meals every month for the homeless and less fortunate.

Kyra added the campaign has been a huge success: “We were expecting 50 to be honest, and we were given 400. So we have quite a lot of boxes.

“We’ve had huge support. The campaign was only supposed to be running for six months but we’re still getting asked for boxes and they are still getting returned.”

Items the charity is looking for including canned goods, cuppa soups and non-perishable food items as well as personal hygiene products such as shower gel.

Kyra continued: “Often the businesses will get back in touch and say ’what is it that you are short of?’ and it is a good way for us to get what is in short supply back into the warehouse.

“It is a way for us to get food to those that really need it the most across the district.”

The boxes were donated by Northampton based packaging company, VPK UK and Ireland and each box holds food staples for 250 meals.

Some facilities supporting the campaign include West Northamptonshire Council, who took three boxes, and the University of Northampton.

100 boxes have been placed around businesses based in Brackmills Industrial Estate.

Kyra said: “It is great to feel that loads of businesses contributed from all different sizes of businesses.”

Northampton Hope Centre turns 50 years old next year and plans to celebrate with multiple fundraising events across the year.

The charity will run a winter sleepout at Northampton College in February where fundraisers will sleep under the stars for a night making shelters from materials found on the street.