A bright idea by a Morrisons employee has led to hundreds of pounds of vital supplies being secured for community groups.

Workington Morrison’s community champion, Lesley Jackson, said: “A colleague came up with the idea of “Grab Bags” for customers to purchase to support local food community groups.

“Basically it is a bag with food in various prices between £2 to £5 available at the front of store, customers pay for the bags at the checkouts and then they put them in the donation station which is located behind the checkouts.”

The idea is in addition to the ongoing support from the store since the beginning of lock down, and extra to the customer donations that have always been in place in the store.

Morrison’s has donated £10 million pounds worth of food to every store for more than 16 weeks.

The idea has really caught on with shoppers in the Workington store. Lesley said: “The Grab Bags have been flying out of the store.

"I can’t keep up with them. We used to have donations fill a trolley a week and now we’re getting a full trolley or virtually a full trolley every other day. Our customers have been fantastic at buying these bags.”

The bags go to support local community groups at Moorclose, Distington, Northside, Flimby, Maryport, Clifton and the North Lakes Foodbank.

Also during lockdown Morrisons asked community champions to come up with a Community Plan.

Lesley said: “Ours is to support Moorclose Community Centre by visiting them twice a week - following guidelines.

"I go on a Tuesday for a ‘drop-in’ well-being session. During this drop-in session I chat to the community and discuss the benefits of healthy eating and how food is good for your mind and body.

"On Saturdays I do a virtual cooking class on Zoom with kids from the youth club, during this time we have made brownies, cheesecake, gingerbread houses at Christmas, mince pies.

"The project we have in mind is to make a recipe book and hopefully sell it to help raise funds for the youth group.”

She added that community work has also included supporting: local care homes, by donating food and treats over the festive period; charity groups by donating food hampers to help them raise money; schools by supporting the School Lunchbox Scheme and donating oranges to St Paul’s Church at Seaton and a few schools so they could do a virtual Christingle service.

Lesley said she is also available to help other Community Groups if any would like to get in touch.