COMPANIES working on a construction project on the edge of St Helens have shown their support to the community with a generous food bank donation.
With around 100 employees working on the construction of site two and three at Omega West in Bold, foodbank collection points have been installed at the business site in order to support the community they are working in.
Intending to support struggling families in St Helens during the cost of living crisis, employees from McLaren, D Morgan, and Kiernan construction firms collected a "phenomenal" 25kg of food in just over a week.
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On Monday, February 6, this donation was collected by volunteer coordinator at the Hope Centre, Mark D'Sa, who will distribute it to families in need via St Helens Foodbank, located at the Hope Centre's hub on Atherton Street.
Sarah Caine, community and supply chain co-ordination for McLaren Construction, organised the foodbank project at Omega and rallied the different companies' employees to get involved.
Sarah said: "I know that people have been struggling recently with the cost of living crisis, and foodbanks have been particularly struggling with more demand but fewer donations.
"So I just wanted to make sure that the business was doing something to help people where we work and do our bit for the community.
"I kept pushing people to donate so once they realised what the donations were for and where they were going, everyone really took to it and the uptake has been phenomenal."
Volunteers and staff at the Hope Centre support a range of people in need in St Helens, such as providing help with homelessness, food poverty, unemployment and mental health.
With this in mind, Sarah felt that they were the perfect charity to distribute the donated food to and confirmed that the foodbank collection will be an "ongoing and longstanding" project while contractors are working on Omega West.
The Omega Business Site includes the development of four units on green belt land in Bold, with planning consent permitted for Home Bargains to turn one of the units into a distribution centre.
This is planned to create more than 1,000 full-time jobs when at full capacity, while the delivery of units two, three and four are also underway.
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