Tele Takeover: Thousands fed with donated food parcels

Kenneth Linton, of Dundee Foodbank, pictured with P5 pupils at Ardler Primary School.

People in Dundee donated 99,997kg of food to our city’s foodbank last year, children at Ardler Primary School heard.

Kenneth Linton, manager at Dundee Foodbank, told pupils that 98,482kg of that donated food was then handed out to people in need in Dundee, single people, couples, families and pets.

The foodbank gave out 5,100 parcels last year – 11,000 people got fed and 3,000 of them were children.

People can buy food and donate it to the foodbank at supermarkets and schools.

Some people give nappies and cat and dog food.

The organisation has partnerships with KFC, Greggs and Nando’s who all give food.

The food is put into three day parcels, a toothbrush, toothpaste and toilet roll is included too.

There has to be three breakfasts, three lunches and three teas, for each person.

In one food parcel you get two thirds of coffee in a plastic tub.

Kenneth said that people can’t just have Mars bars, biscuits and sweets, they have to have different things to eat.

He said people are struggling with a thing called Universal Credit.

Dundee Foodbank opened in 2004 and it was not called Dundee Foodbank, it was called Discovery Food Programme. They also started in a shed then it became bigger.

People can have whatever they need so if they don’t have a cooker they can eat cold stuff.

The busiest days are Tuesdays and Fridays. Kenneth said that Fridays were busy because people need food over the weekend but he couldn’t understand why Tuesdays were so busy. They don’t give out alcohol or razor blades.

Review: Tackling serious subjects with humour

Our favourite story is Planet Omar, Accidental Trouble Magnet.

The author is called Zanib Mian and the illustrator is called Nasaya Mafaridik.

It is about a boy who moves school and he is a Muslim. The class bully is Daniel – Omar’s worst enemy.

Once when they were doing art in class Daniel purposefully spilled a cup of water over on to Omar’s painting.

We liked the part when Daniel accidentally head-butted a chair in the dinner hall. We also liked when Omar accidentally ate the alcoholic chocolates that Mrs Roger’s brought to the Eid feast and when Omar’s little brother Esa blew a whistle really loudly in the quiet mosque.

We think that this book was really funny but Omar is annoying sometimes.

We also think that some bits of the book are not too exciting.

We would recommend this book to others as it is funny and has a happy ending.

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐