THE Gate Foodbank in Alloa desperately needs help to prepare for its busiest time of the year, as demand on the service continues to grow.

Since it was officially set-up in 2011 the amount of referrals from partner agencies has climbed, with the number of parcels handed out to those in need doubling in the last two years.

And there is pressure on the foodbank - which is run by The Gate Charity - to get its stock levels up over the coming months.

Adrienne Hilton, foodbank coordinator, said: “We have consistent stocks coming in; We have a good, solid donor base, particularly churches and schools and local community groups like the scouts or guides that will do an odd collection.

“But because of the number that are going out although the donations that are coming in have increased, they don’t appear to.”

Donations have started rolling in on account of the harvest but, due to the cyclical nature of the operation and the demand, shelves aren’t staying full for very long.

Adrienne added: “You’re filling up from a position of nothing because over the summer you don’t get as much in at all.

“What we find is that we’ve been getting things in and - as soon as they’ve been coming in - they’ve been going out into food parcels and off the shelves.

“We are currently running at about 30 to 40 food parcels a week but we usually get a bit of an increase between September and December. So if we’re running at 30 to 40 now it will probably be 40 to 50 come the end of the year.

“When I started doing statistics we were at nine a month, but that was away back in 2011. In 2012, it went up to 23 a month, in 2013 - so that’s only two years ago - we were at 58 per month.

“Two weeks ago, I did 46 in a week. So that’s the stark statistics.”

A number of outside bodies - such as council services, the NHS, Citizens Advice Bureau, local politicians, churches, charities and more - refer residents in crisis.

The Clacks foodbank has noted there can be a multitude of reasons for people finding themselves in hardship.

It has also said there has been an increase in the the number of families needing its service - 40 per cent seeking help are families and 60 per cent are single people.

And it is due to face extra pressure over the next three months.

At the end of August it was running at 116 a month, the level witnessed towards the end of 2014.

Adrienne said: “Every year we see an exponential increase in the demands on the foodbank so for the last quarter it always goes up.

“Therefore if we’re currently running at the level we were last December we are expecting it to increase to at least 150 a month, in the next two or three months.

“So that means we need to have the stocks in that enables us to do that, or the money in because what we still do is provide a bag of stock items and a bag of fresh items.

“But we can only do that with the support of the public, to provide the donations and the money for it, because we don’t have any external funding for the provision of food parcels.”

For information regarding the delivery of donations, please contact The Gate Charity on 01259 218766.

Additionally, dry food items can be left in trollies located in Alloa supermarkets Tesco and Morrisons, along with the Co-op on Tullibody Road.

Or grab lunch there on Fridays, from noon until 2pm.

Stock items urgently needed for the foodbank: Rice pudding; meat paste; tinned ham/corned beef; meatballs/mince and stew; tinned veg, peas/carrots and sweetcorn; individual packets of custard powder; pasta and sauce, savoury rice, noodles; jam; Weetabix, porridge, cereal; biscuits; jars of pasta sauce/cooking sauce.