AN APPEAL to help the region’s poverty-stricken families has been launched.

The Wynyard Park business park, in Teesside, is asking their employees, tenant companies and local residents to donate food for distribution to the area’s food banks.

Jennifer Boreland, Wynyard Park’s Facilities Co-ordinator, said: “We all know that times are hard for a lot of local families in these uncertain economic times and all it takes is redundancy or an unexpected bill when people are on low incomes to tip them over the edge.

“We want to try to make life easier for them by ensuring that they don’t have to worry about where their next meal is going to come from.

“An extra tin of soup or bag of sugar in all of our supermarket trolleys each week would make a tremendous difference to families in our region.”

Donations of non-perishable foodstuffs can be dropped off at the reception desk of Wynyard Park House.

Suitable items include powdered milk, sugar, fruit juice, soup, tinned food, rice, pasta and biscuits.

The food will be passed to the Trussell Trust - a charity dedicated to tackling poverty – for distribution to food banks in the area.