OREANDA-NEWS. The larders at Readifood, the foodbank which cares for the homeless and poor of Reading, have received a welcome boost thanks to a food-raising endeavour by everyone at SSE's Vastern Road offices.

Malcolm Peirce from Readifood said, “It is wonderful that a local company should want to help the community in this way. As demand for food parcels continues to grow week by week, such donations are all the more valuable to us.”

The food collection was the brainwave of SSE's Local Safety Group (LSG) at Vastern Road, who came up with the idea at their monthly meeting, in order to provide support for the nearby community.

Annette Bennett from SSE's LSG explains more: “Every few months we have a “Fruity Friday” where the LSG buys a piece of fruit for each member of staff in Vastern Road. As you can imagine, with nearly 500 staff on site, that's one big basketful of apples and bananas! This time, I thought it would be good to do something different, something which saw the team give something back to the local community and show how we want to be a good neighbour.

“I was watching the news one night and saw a feature on the increase in foodbanks. I immediately thought that if we could find a locally-based one to help in Reading I'd put the idea forward at our next LSG meeting. As soon as I mentioned it, everyone thought it was a great idea and we set to work getting everyone on site involved.”