Church youth group donates items to food bank and is keen to do more to 'improve' Wolverhampton
Young people from a church in Wolverhampton have donated food and essentials to a food bank in Wolverhampton – and plan to do more good deeds this year.
Around 35 youngsters from The Church of Pentecost, on Woden Road, donated canned food, toiletries and cleaning projects to The Well food bank in the city.
And they even managed to collect clothes and jackets for another charity in the city last month – and visit a care home in Heath Town to sing Christmas carols.
But that won't be all, with hopes it will be a start of a push by the church to improve Wolverhampton by carrying out good deeds for the most vulnerable there.
Emmanuel Boakye, an elder of the church and the youth leader, said: "We did it because we've always been taught to follow the example of Christ, so what he did is he saw the need and then he tried to help. We also saw the need in the city of Wolverhampton during a time where there's a cost of living crisis.
"I said (to the young people) the little that we have should be donated to those who need it the most. You might be able to make a difference, let's gather what we've got and put our resources together and give to the food bank."
Donations were collected throughout December with the food bank left "shocked" at the sizeable donation – including 232 kilograms of non-perishable food items on December 23 – with the recipients "very grateful" for the items.
"They were really grateful for the donation and the lady from the food bank spoke to us for more than 30 minutes afterwards, they were really grateful to see how much stuff and also that we even gave," he said.
Meanwhile the other donation was handed to a cat rescue charity, which will be able to re-sell the items donated to bring in much-needed income. Both donations were collected throughout December at the church, with young people dropping off the items whenever they passed by.
And there is still an appetite to do more with a call being put out for other young people across the city to get involved and to help those in need, with further donations to organisations such as Birmingham Children's Hospital in mind.
Mr Boakye added: "We're planning this year to do a lot more. We want to be in the town centre cleaning places, we want to do a lot more and for that we want a lot of people to come forward – and help improve our city by being good."
The church elder invited young people to visit the church to get involved.
