A STAGGERING 4,000 carrier bags of food were delivered to ensure no child in a community would go hungry this Christmas.

The amazing effort was started by 27-year-old Jordan Mattinson who wanted to make a positive difference in his community when he heard about Manchester United footballer Marcus Rashford’s campaign to ensure schoolchildren from low-income families continued to receive free meals in school holidays.

Jordan from Whitehaven, who works for Enigma Industrial Services, wanted to make sure no child in his community would go hungry this Christmas.

Friends and businesses rallied to the cause and so far have raised almost £11,000 for the Copeland Christmas Food Project, enabling organisers to turn up at Aldi’s Whitehaven store and buy 25,000 individual items totalling 20 tons of food and drink to be given to families in need.

Faye McAllister, from Whitehaven, who works at United Utilities and Peter Burns who works at Sellafield, were among those who helped and with advice from North Lakes Foodbank at Cockermouth, prioritised food that would go furthest in households such as pasta, rice and soup.

With the money and the help of staff at Aldi in Whitehaven, Jordan, Faye, Peter and friends were able to assemble a shopping list. Then came the logistics of how to transport, store, bag, and deliver the 32 pallets stacked high with food to the people who were most in need.

Forth Engineering, which had already donated £500 to the fund, came to the rescue by donating two lorries - which were working on a project for Sellafield - and, with Sellafield’s permission, were able to lend them to the project so that all the food and drink could be taken to the former Marchon site at Kells.

At the weekend more than 50 volunteers helped pack the food into 4,000 carrier bags, with each family set to receive two bags of food.

On Monday five vans delivered the food to more than 50 schools to be distributed to families.

Jordan said: “What an unbelievable response from the community, from all the volunteers and businesses and organisations who have helped us. I have never been more proud or happy with anything I’ve ever been involved in. None of this would be possible without the family we have, the friends we have, and the community we have.”

Faye added: “The support we have had from businesses has been amazing. On Friday, Forth Engineering donated the use of two of their lorries and their team joined in to help us move everything from Aldi to our packing base at the former Marchon site. We couldn’t have done it without them.”