Rugby food bank recreates carol to ask for donations

Professional singer and volunteer Geraint Roberts was joined by other foodbank volunteers in the video

A food bank has recreated the popular carol the 12 Days of Christmas, changing the lyrics to ask for items to be donated.

Adi Robinson, centre manager at Hope4, which operates the food bank in Rugby, came up with the idea so every day a different thing can be given.

Volunteer and professional singer Geraint Roberts was joined by others in a video asking for donations.

The opening lyric asks for "some stuffing for the Christmas turkey".

Mr Robinson told BBC CWR: "We always do something for Christmas and we always try to be creative and this year we wanted to do something slightly different.

"We sort of know the items that we'd like to put into the sort of Christmas hampers, and so it was just literally taking the list of probably 24 types of food items that we do put in and working out which are the best that sort of goes lyrically."

As well as stuffing, the song asks for tins of fruit, crisps, chocolate coins, gravy granules, selection boxes and jars of chutney.

"We're gearing up to make around 350 hampers," Mr Robinson said. "We support 350 per month at Rugby food bank.

"Over the period of Christmas and December, we're likely to see, based on last year, 825 people in that month, so we're expecting to possibly exceed that."

He said they are seeing a demand change for people coming to food banks.

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"Over April to November, we've just released some national stats through Trussell Trust, which we were part of and we're issuing 5,100 parcels every single day.

"More locally across the West Midlands conurbation, we're seeing a 20% increase over the same same period, based on 2019's figures."