CHARITIES in Hyndburn are desperately appealing for donations from the area’s affluent as they struggle to provide food parcels.

Hyndburn Helpers meet twice a week at St James Church in Accrington to provide food and support to those in need, and welcome up to 25 people for each meeting.

Currently the community charity are down to its last few tins of food for parcels, having ran out of items such as tinned meats, pasta and spaghetti.

Volunteers estimate that they only have enough remaining for six food parcels.

Lisa Hilton, one of four volunteers who run Hyndburn Helpers, says it is desperate times for the group.

She said: “We’ve never seen our donations get this low in our history.

“It’s awful, recently we’ve had policemen and nurses coming to us looking for food parcels because they can’t feed their families.

“It’s getting desperate for us, we really need to raise awareness and get donations in.”

Volunteers have arranged meetings with churches and primary schools in the area for next week to help their appeals.

The group provide hot meals at their meetings thanks to donations from Balti House in Rishton, Home Run in Accrington and the end of day products from local Greggs stores.

The group has been running for two and a half years and also provide clothing and care to those in need.

Mrs Hilton said: “We’re determined to keep going and feeding people.

“We are doing everything we can to try and increase donations and going out to speak to people all over.

“But we’re getting more and more people in Accrington who are desperate.

“In my opinion people are really struggling at the moment with universal credit and people aren’t as aware of the need in summer.”

This comes as Maundy Relief, another Accrington charity, has also faced troubles delivering food parcels.

Last month the charity had completely run out of items such as pasta, tuna, spaghetti and soup.

Lucy Hardwick, manager at Maundy Relief said: “We’ve had a big increase in the number of people coming to us needing food parcels.

“Our cupboards were absolutely bare a couple of weeks ago.

“We put a Facebook appeal out and we managed to get a few more items, people in Accrington are brilliant.”

Anyone who wants to donate to Hyndburn Helpers can drop items off at their meetings every Monday and Wednesday from 7pm until 9pm at St James Church.

Volunteers at Maundy Relief also said they think people struggling with benefits was a reason for the increase in recent months.