Shoppers at a Norwich supermarket gave generously at the weekend to help people who cannot afford to feed themselves or their families.

Norwich Foodbank supplies emergency food packages to people in crisis in conjunction with care services like YMCA and Age UK.

The charity held a supermarket collection day at Asda in Hellesdon on Saturday and Norwich North MP Chloe Smith said the level of support from the public was astonishing.

Miss Smith, who on Saturday handed out Foodbank shopping lists to customers and helped sort the food collected, said: 'As always, the response was astonishing from members of the public. In the course of the day there were boxes and boxes of food donated.

'The other volunteers and I really appreciate the support, from Evening News readers in particular following the publicity that the charity has had in recent months.' She said: 'It may come as a surprise that there are people going hungry in Norwich but that is the truth, and we all have to do what we can to help them.'

Grant Habershon, project manager of Norwich Foodbank, said the response on Saturday was a good example of the brilliant support the charity was getting from the whole community.

He said: 'Overall it is wonderful – we have had a fantastic response from the whole community.

'At harvest time we had donations from over 100 different places including schools, churches and other organisations.'

The charity currently has six distribution centres and Mr Habershon said it would soon be opening new centres in Heartsease, West Earlham, and Wymondham.

He said the charity was also now looking for office space for its admin team and that the charity would soon be posting a video of its work on the Norwich Foodbank website.

The next Norwich Foodbank supermarket collection is on Friday, December 9 at Tesco in Blue Boar Lane, Sprowston. Cartons of fruit juice and small bags of sugar are the items most needed. Other items on the charity's shopping list include tinned fruit, cereals, rice and pasta, and tea bags.

There is a celebration evening to mark Norwich Foodbank's first birthday on November 21 at 7.30pm at Norwich Central Baptist Church in Duke Street. Everyone is welcome.

For information on how you can help Norwich Foodbank, email foodnorwichproject@hotmail.co.uk or call 07955 920590.

Are you setting up a new project? Call Emma Knights on 01603 772428 or email emma.knights@archant.co.uk