IT is the simplest of gifts:
a can of food. But for those who are desperate, this gift can be life-altering. Lottie Macdonald, like many food donors, became aware of the need for foodbanks incrementally. She had seen a television programme about people who relied on them. One story concerned a mother who was surviving on one slice of toast a day in order to make sure her teenage daughter could eat three regular meals.
This stayed with her. Later, shopping in Asda with her husband, Donald, she saw a stall collecting food for The Trussell Trust.
"I said to Donald, let's do a shop for us and then I'll go back and do a second shop, to donate." This became a weekly ritual for the couple.
Macdonald then decided to use her vocation, as a lay preacher, to raise funds for the charity. When she is called to fill the pulpit - if a minister is on holiday, for example - she will tell the congregation about The Trussell Trust and ask if the week's collection may go to the charity. So far, no-one has disagreed.
She says: "You must remember, it is not my money being donated, I am only the delivery boy. Once I tell people about The Trussell Trust and about foodbanks they are always happy for their collection to be gifted to them.
"You do get the common misconceptions - that anyone who needs a food donation is a drug addict, or a gambler or has a drink problem. I explain that this is just not true.
"Something has to be done for these people. It is time the Governments in Scotland and England open their eyes and take a really good look round.
"I am 67 years old and I have never seen poverty like this; young people with so few prospects.
"You see in Glasgow that it is the people with the least who give the most. Why is that?"
Macdonald's gifts go to the foodbank at Calton Parkhead Parish Church, in Glasgow's east end. At the other end of the chain is Maureen Price, who found herself in need following the most desperate of circumstances.
A Romany gypsy, Price was living in the southside of Glasgow with her teenage son and toddler daughter when social work services moved, she claims, to take her daughter into care unexpectedly. Nearly three years later, the case is still active and Price is fighting to get her daughter returned to her.
The costs of fighting the local authority decision pushed Price - and her sister, who is supporting her - below the poverty line.
Price says: "It got to the stage where we were using my money to feed us and my sister's money to feed our 'office'. We budgeted as best we could, eating soup and pasta and anything that was cheap but filling, but eventually we just ran out."
After several days of eating nothing, Price approached The Trussell Trust and was told to secure a voucher for a food parcel.
"It wasn't just the food," Maureen says. "When you walked in you felt your shoulders lighten. It was food, and it was a chance to talk to someone, be sat down and made tea and listened to. An escape from your own wheels whirring in your head.
"I am humbly grateful to people like Lottie. What she has done, by donating, has played a big part in easing my situation."
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