Can you help out? WITH thousands of people in our area living on the edge of poverty, organisations like the Bracknell Foodbank play a pivotal role in providing support for those in dire need.

The charity, headed by husband and wife duo, Geoff and Pat Hallett, has been working with various local agencies to identify people in crisis since 2009 and celebrates its third birthday later this month.

In July alone, the foodbank fed 220 adults and children, many of whom have no financial safety net or the means to feed themselves or their families. This compares with 112 in August last year.

The charity provides free food parcels to cover 10 meals over three days. Groups, companies and individuals donate food or money to support it and with Harvest Festival coming up, volunteers expect 20 tonnes of food in donations from schools, churches and other groups. However, the charity has room for only 12 tonnes in its current storage facility - prompting a desperate call for local organisations to provide a large storage area.

Mrs Hallett, a retired teacher, said: "From October we're going to be manic and we're desperate for a much bigger storage space to keep all the food. We've got shelves and racking, it's just the space we need.

"In particular, we need a facility that's easily accessible, which is something we don't have at the moment." Bracknell Foodbank is based at the Kerith Community Church in Church Road, Bracknell town centre, and gives out food three times a week to those in need, who have been referred to the foodbank by other agencies.

Mrs Hallett said: "The demand has been getting bigger and bigger throughout the three years we've been running, which I believe is down to the financial climate, the recession and changes to welfare benefits.

"Costs are spiralling all the time and salaries aren't meeting that, so we have even more people being referred to us." Many of the foodbank volunteers are elderly or retired - the youngest is 17 and the oldest 82 years old - so the new storage space would need to be somewhere with only a few or no stairs that can also be driven straight up to. It needs to be about 150sqm in size.

Mrs Hallett added: "It needs to be dry and well ventilated too and what we really need is for it to be free really!

"This is a local charity serving the local community and it would be great if larger companies, who have spare space, could give something back." Throughout October and November the charity also works with groups of volunteers from local companies, such as Specsavers Bracknell or the Bracknell branch of Lloyds TSB.

"We need space for them to work as well," said Mrs Hallett. "Currently we don't have the area necessary for the volunteers to sort food." If you have storage space, or want to volunteer, call 01344 862699, email foodbank@kerith.co.uk or see www.kerith.co.uk