Fire stations across Angus have been busy collecting donations to help their local communities this festive season.
For the past few weeks crews from the Wholetime and Retained stations based at Arbroath, Brechin, Carnoustie, Forfar, Kirriemuir and Montrose, have been collecting van loads of foods, essential items and toys for children to be donated to their local foodbank.
The stations have also been sharing their work on their own Facebook pages, causing many community donations to be dropped off at the stations to also go to those in need.
From the amount of donations in the Carnoustie area alone, which includes three van loads of food, every child from a family who uses the foodbank will receive a Christmas present.
Group Commander for the Angus Area, Scott Gibson said: “The local crews and community safety teams have gone above and beyond to help.
“Every day people in the UK go hungry for reasons ranging from redundancy to receiving an unexpected bill on a low income.
© Supplied by Scottish Fire and Re
“A simple box of food or providing a present at Christmas can make a big difference. Foodbanks initiatives can help to alleviate worry among families.
“As firefighters helping others is what we do. Contributing to this effort has allowed us to keep supporting people in our local communities.”
Manager for Angus Foodbanks, Norman Brown thanked those at from the Angus fire stations for their donations to the foodbank, and those in the fire service for their work during the pandemic.
He said: “Angus Foodbank is always blown away by the support we receive from the local community.
“Thank you to the Fire Service for your hard work during this difficult year, continuing to do your job during the pandemic, and in thinking of others in the community by collecting food for us as well.
“264kg of food has been donated to the foodbank which is enough to provide 30 people with a 3-day food parcel. Fantastic job. Well done. This will be distributed to those in need in Angus over the coming days.
“At present we are feeding about 85 people a week and give out 2.5 tonnes of food a month. It is so sad that our services are required and we would love to be able to eradicate the need for our services and end food poverty in Angus.”
