Tesco Extra Hemel Hempstead donates delivery van to help charity tackle food poverty

Tesco Extra Hemel Hempstead has helped a local charity in its mission to alleviate food poverty with the donation of a delivery van.

Changing Lives Forever (CLF), established in 2015, is a non-profit charity and international development organisation that was set up to tackle poverty, homelessness, hunger and human suffering across the United Kingdom and Europe.

As part of this mission, the charity operates a food bank, delivering food and other essentials to those in need in both Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire.

The charity is also a long-standing beneficiary of the Community Food Connection scheme run by Tesco through FareShare, meaning it regularly collects surplus food from the store to help with its work.

In a ceremony outside the Tesco superstore on Jarman Way, Tesco Community Champion Tricia Glenister and Eileen Cannon, community co-ordinator at Tesco partner FareShare, presented a Tesco delivery van, now wrapped in CLF livery, to Phillip McKinley, CLF chair, and CLF principal delivery driver Collette McKinley.

Tricia said: “I have worked with Phillip and Changing Lives Forever for a while now as I work closely with all the charities that use our services, and was keen to see how else we could help them in the vital work they do.

“Hopefully this van from our delivery fleet will enable them to help a lot of people, and I’m pleased to be able to present it with its new look to the charity officially.”

Phillip McKinley, chair of Changing Lives Forever, said: “We would like to thank Tricia and the rest of the team at Tesco for the donation of this van which will allow us to reach more people and make a big difference in the local community.

“This donation means we can reach out to more suppliers, whose help we had previously been forced to reject due to having no transport, as we will now be able to pick up more food and open more food banks so we can reach more people who are in need.”

The Tesco Community Food Champion Scheme is run in partnership with FareShare and OLIO.