Working from home, being furloughed or being in self isolation can bring with it lots of problems, not least of which is more pressure on the household budget and difficulty in accessing food.

Charities and in particular food banks which serve the needs of local communities are feeling even more pressure on their resources as they try to meet the huge increase in demand for their services caused by the outbreak of Coronavirus. One such charity is Porch Boxes based near to the Society's office in Bury who provide crisis packs of food and toiletries to local people in urgent need.

Peter Green, Chief Executive of Healthy Investment commented “ Porch Boxes is a local charity that we have supported in the past and we are pleased to be able to do so again and to make a donation of £500 to the charity to support them in the work that they do in providing food and essentials to vulnerable households in the local area. Hopefully things will start to return to normal soon but until then we know that there are lots of families in the communities around our office who are struggling and who need some extra help during these difficult times.”

The photograph shows Sam Williams, Business Development Executive at Healthy Investment at Porch Boxes’ distribution centre after making the donation to Julia Rowlands, Chair of Porch Boxes.

Julia commented “We are extremely grateful to Healthy Investment for their generous donation. This comes at a time when there has been a huge increase in demand for our assistance. We have delivered over 1300 food parcels to those in need in the local community in the last 6 weeks alone. This compares to a usual figure of 5500 in a 12 month period.”

If you would like to learn more about Porch Boxes and the work they do, volunteer to help or make a donation then please visit www.porchboxes.wordpress.com

Donations of food items to Porch Boxes can be made at their collection points in Tesco or Asda in Bury. In particular donations of tinned vegetables or tomatoes and also hotdogs and pasta would be most welcomed.