SPIRITS have been lifted for a hardworking West Belfast foodbank after receiving a £10,000 donation from Snow Patrol frontman Gary Lightbody.
Foodstock, a food bank in West Belfast run by Paul Doherty, received the donation from The Lightbody Foundation, which was established by Gary Lightbody with a goal of giving to charities throughout the North.
Foodstock have received great acclaim for the work they do in providing for people in need throughout West Belfast and have been involved in helping people with a variety of support including with food, heating electricity, assisting the people of Ukraine, helping with school uniforms and delivering meals to people over Christmas.
FOODSTOCK: Paul Doherty and Foodstock earlier this year arranging a delivery of aid to people in Ukraine
Paul Doherty said: “It’s a fantastic donation, and one that will make a real difference to what we do in the community. It’s come at a time when we’re in the thick of it, of tackling the cost of living crisis.
"For us, we’re seeing a lot of people daily being really negatively impacted by this crisis, and it’s also taken a toll on our volunteers seeing people in our community struggling so much. We have had our heads down a bit this week, with just how full on it has been and seeing how hard things are out there, but this donation has given us a real lift and extra incentive to spur us on to carry on through winter and reach out to even more people.”
As the financial situation is dire in Northern Ireland (it’s dire all over of course) we have donated 10k each to 5 different foodbanks to go some small way to help mitigate the growing food poverty situation in NI... pic.twitter.com/u4rOFmfAs8
— The Lightbody Foundation (@lightbodyfdn) June 15, 2022
Paul said the donation came through after they were contacted by The Lightbody Foundation after they saw the work Foodstock were doing, and the donation would go towards allowing them to help more people.
“We got contacted by the foundation who said they’d been watching the work we’ve been doing, and it’s fantastic for us to get that recognition, and it’s amazing for someone like Gary Lightbody to see the work we’re doing here in West Belfast. It was a great show of solidarity and support, and it will greatly help us this winter when we go out to knock on the doors of hundreds of people and will allow us to step up the work we’ve doing. It’s given us a real lift, it'll allow us to reach so many more people.”
