The Wokingham Lions Christmas food collection, known locally as ‘The Can Can’, will return again in December.
The collections started over 30 years ago, long before food banks came into existence. The project’s original aim was to support the elderly people in Wokingham who, for whatever reason, were
finding life a little tough. It was a great way of letting them know that someone was thinking of them over the festive period.
Wokingham Lions member and Can Can organiser, John Cleary told us: “We get amazing support from Tesco and Waitrose, who allow us to ask their customers if they could purchase an extra item of non-perishable food and donate it when they leave the store. On average over 3,000 food items each year are donated by the generous people of Wokingham. These are then made up into parcels ready for distribution.”
In more recent years Wokingham Lions Club have been working with Wokingham based charities like First Days Children’s Charity, Share Wokingham and The Foodbank. This has enabled them to cast their net wider, so in addition to the elderly they also help bring ‘Christmas Cheer’ to local
families too. Last Christmas over 300 parcels were distributed in the Wokingham area.
Collection dates this year are:
Saturday 2nd December – Waitrose, Wokingham
Friday 8th December – Tesco, Wokingham
Saturday 9th December – Waitrose, Wokingham
Wokingham Lions will be outside each store between 9am and 4pm.