Project Feed Chorley: We look back on the time the people of Chorley pulled together to help a food bank in dire need

The Chorley Guardian is featuring 150 stories about Chorley: Inspirational people, places that we love, or special moments in the life of the borough.

It's a countdown to our 150th anniversary on November 4 and we’re celebrating the community we’re proud to be a part of.

Chorley's LW Storehouse food bank is a great example of the community pulling together to help each other out in time of need.

And the Guardian is very proud to say it helped make a difference.

Just before Christmas 2018, the Guardian launched the Project Feed Chorley campaign to build a new warehouse at the LW Storehouse.

We worked alongside community radio station Chorley FM and Chorley Football Club and hundreds of people in the town to offer help and support.

Operating from the damp Living Waters Church cellar on Bolton Street, the food bank was in dire need of a more suitable premises for its selfless volunteers to work in.

Just five months later, after raising more than £20,000 in six weeks - and nearly £30,000 overall - the food bank officially opened the warehouse in April 2019.

The Project Feed Chorley campaign went on to be shortlisted in the Journalism Matters: Making a difference category in the Society of Editors Regional Press Awards.

Carol Halton, the then co-ordinator at the LW Storehouse, said at the time: “We have been overwhelmed with the response from the people of Chorley. They have been so generous and caring.

“It just goes to show people care about their community being a part of it.

“It’s just been a total miracle."

Which is why few organisations are more deserving of inclusion in our Chorley 150 series aiming to highlight all that is good about Chorley.

Project Manager Helen Schilz took over managing the foodbank from Carol in January last year.

Helen says: "Looking back, that was just before COVID started. It's been pretty busy."

Last summer as people were coming off furlough for the first time around, Adlington Council worked with LW Storehouse to provide food parcels.

The county council had put a Summer Hunger initiative together with a number of agencies and that was one of them.

The funding was used to provide food deliveries to families in need.

Funding for the scheme has run out but the need has not so LW Storehouse has had to do what it can; amending the parcels and changing them to monthly deliveries but still maintaining a vital flow of supplies.

LW Storehouse makes in the region of 50 donations (called referrals) each week.

The food bank is run by volunteers mainly from Living Waters Church.

Food is donated by most of the churches in Chorley, supermarkets, businesses, schools and various groups and individuals

Food can be donated during opening times or placed in church trolleys by the checkout areas in Morrisons, Asda in Chorley or Asda Clayton Brook, also Tesco Buckshaw.

To find out more about the foodbank, contact either Simon or Helen on 07889757045, or email storehouse@lwchurchuk or visit the group's Facebook page and send a message on Messenger.

Chorley 150 countdown

Send in your suggestions for our stories in the next few months and let's celebrate 150 years together.

Whether its a person, a place, an event, a sporting moment, drop us a line via email [email protected]

We'd love to hear from you.

Read more from our Chorley 150 countdown:

Chorley-born seaman Charles Lightoller survived the Titanic

Sir Bill Beaumont: One of England's greatest every rugby players