More than £10,000 has been raised for Richmond Foodbank in an online campaign.

Generous donations helped the Rotary Club of Kew Gardens hit two of its fundraising targets in its Richmond Foodbank Crisis Appeal.

The club agreed to match pound-for-pound the first £3,600 raised. They surpassed this with ease and have sinced reached a total of nearly £7,400 in donations.

This means £11,000 will go to the group of foodbanks in Richmond, Barnes, Hampton, Whitton and Isleworth.

And today is the final full day of the Crowdfunder campaign, with a cut-off point for pledges of Saturday, July 4 at 12.10pm.

The money raised will specifically go to the Richmond Foodbank network, a part of the national Trussell Trust charity.

It gives emergency food packs to those in need, each containing three days' worth of nutritionally balanced emergency food.

Founded in 2012, Richmond Foodbank gave out 2,385 of these packs last year – but the Covid-19 crisis means that there are yet more people in need this time round.

We spoke to the staff at the foodbank in the Vineyard Centre, off Richmond Hill, who said demand has increased as much as four times during the pandemic.

A feature-length piece on the outstanding work they do will be published on Richmond Nub News over the weekend.

Falling on hard times

Research carried out by the universities of Sheffield and Birmingham in partnership with the charity Carers UK in April found that more than 100,000 respondents doing unpaid caring for elderly, disabled or seriously ill relatives have had to turn to foodbanks during the crisis.

This issue has been made more acute by supermarkets being unable to give as much food to charities due to panic buying, reports the Guardian.

What your donation will buy

A £90 donation can pay for three food packs, which they believe is enough to see families in crisis through until they receive a government Universal Credit payment.

Pledging £30 or £60 can fund one or two packs respectively.

If you can support the Richmond Foodbank Crisis Appeal, donations can be made on the online Crowdfunder page here.