MORE than £1,000 worth of essential household items were donated to a Wee County charity by kind-hearted locals last week.

Two members of the St Vincent de Paul group from Tullibody's St Bernadette's Church handed over the haul to The Gate on Thursday, September 12.

Their contribution will go towards the charity's start-up packs, which provide homeless people with household essentials such as crockery and cutlery before they start new tenancies.

Kathleen Massanopoli, 71, was one of the church members who handed over the donation.

She told the Advertiser: "There's about five of us and we're working from St Bernadette's Church.

"Our mission is to help poor in any way we can.

"We'd heard The Gate were doing this new start-up project for people who are homeless and being given accommodation, but who have nothing.

"The Gate were looking to get start-up packs, and we had £1,000 so we bought kettles, toasters, bed sheets etc. [for them]."

Kathleen also approached Alloa's Asda store to see if they would help, and they kindly agreed to donate a further £100 worth of goods towards the project.

With each start-up pack costing around £100, that means a total of 11 people will benefit from The Gate's scheme thanks to the donation.

Kathleen said: "The Gate were over the moon with the amount of stuff we've given them."

And Marie Brownhill, The Gate's centre manager, claimed the donation was badly needed and praised the generosity of the church group, and Asda.

She said: "We've noticed a significant increase in referrals throughout this year.

"We had started to run low on stock, so we're very thankful for the donation.

"It means we can continue to provide start-up packs for people living in homeless accommodation as they go into a new tenancy."