May’s list of items most needed for local families in food crisis has a focus on products in lighter and safer packaging for clients who are now again collecting their emergency food parcels from the Food Hub.

So, tomatoes and pasta sauce in cartons both feature on the list, along with concentrated fruit squash in small plastic discs if possible.

Some other items remain listed from April due to continued shortage, such as cartons of long life whole milk, tinned vegetarian meals (including from the Princes plant based range) and tinned fruit.

Completing the list are drinking chocolate requiring only hot water and tinned plain meat – corned beef, chicken, ham.

Two of the three non-food items needed are also carried over from last month, unisex deodorant and washing powder liquid pods, and in addition we are requesting small bottles of shampoo.

Click here to view the list in full. To have it sent with our monthly newsletter directly to your inbox at the beginning of each month, please email steve.purleyfoodhub@gmail.com.

Donations can be delivered to us at Purley United Reformed Church, next to Purley Hospital, between 9.00 – 11.30am on Wednesday, Saturday and Monday mornings, except on May’s two Bank Holidays on Monday 4th and Monday 25th.

• On Wednesdays and Saturdays please come to the brown doors on the right-hand (hospital) side of the church building.
• On Mondays please come to the white doors at the end of the building ahead of you from Brighton Road.

Donations can also be dropped off at any of our in-store and roadside collection points listed here.

In the event of real difficulty, we may be able to arrange collection of your donations – please email purleyfoodhub@gmail.com or text 07546 635295.

As well as supporting the Food Hub, donations also help support the two local Food Stops – at Old Lodge Lane Baptist Church, Purley, and St Francis Church, Monks Hill, Selsdon – where many of our clients move on to for further help after receiving their emergency food bags from us.

As ever we are grateful for every can, jar, packet, bottle and pound that you kindly donate – they all go to support someone locally who is struggling to put food on the table for them and their family.

So, many thanks EVERYONE for your ongoing generous support. It means that since we opened in 2013, we have been able to provide food for nearly 47,500 people. At three meals a day for three days for each family member, that’s equivalent to more than 425,000 meals.