Matthew’s heartfelt donation to food bank

AN EIGHT year old Bell’s Brae Primary School pupil has taken to baking pancakes to raise over £100 for a local food bank “because it is sad for the poor to live without money and a house”.

Mother Ruth Roberts MacMillan said her son Matthew had come up with the idea all by himself after reading David Walliams’ book ‘Mr Stink’.

“He made the sign at school, took it home and asked me to help make/sell pancakes to make money for ‘the poor’,” Ruth said.

“I posted on Facebook to see if anyone would be interested in buying some pancakes and got a good response, so made and sold quite a few.

“We made £105.64 in total, which we used to buy shopping which we then donated to the local Salvation Army to use in their food parcels.”

The Lerwick Salvation Army branch, which runs a food parcel service from its Commercial Road premises, thanked Matthew for his “very kind and generous donation and for all the hard work you have done to bake and sell your pancakes”.

“Those people in Shetland who do not have enough to eat will be really pleased with the food you have donated to us,” the branch told him.

Demand for food parcels in Lerwick shot up by 50 per cent year-on-year from 2014 to 2015, with local officers saying UK government welfare cuts were partly to blame for the increasing number of people going hungry.