BLACKBURN foodbank’s Easter Appeal ‘failed to connect with people’ leaving organisers disappointed over the holiday period.

The Brunswick centre foodbank launched a lenten appeal that urged people to give something instead of give up something for Lent.

Ros Duerden, project manager at the Blackburn foodbank said: “For whatever reason, people just didn’t engage with the idea and we were quite disappointed.

“We have to work even harder to get people involved.

“I don’t think it’s a lack of generosity, people give so much and are asked to give so much all the time for those in need and there had just been a big Sports Relief push that people had got behind and the bishop launched his own Easter appeal so there was a lot going on and I think we just maybe got a little bit forgotten about.”

Nationally, the Trussell Trust, which runs the Blackburn foodbank, says that it saw a surge in donations over Easter after an article in a national newspaper contributed to a 1,000 per cent increase in donations.

The trust was criticised by a report in the Daily Mail which alleged that the trust was misleading the public with ‘emotionally manipulative’ publicity and that ‘government sources’ rejected the trust’s statement that one million people need food aid in the UK.

Before the story was published, there had been about 250 public donations on the Trussell Trust’s JustGiving page, launched in January.

That jumped to more than 3,300, worth more than £36,000 and several donors cited the article as the reason for contributing.

However, Ros told the Lancashire Telegraph: “Sadly our bank account has not seen an influx of money and even more sadly we had a very poor response to our Easter appeal but I don’t think it was related to the article as that was printed after our appeal.”

The foodbank say they had enough donations to ensure that no one went hungry over Easter, largely due to a successful collection at the Tesco store in Great Harwood.

Community Solutions, based in Burnley and Accrington shared an alternative story, as their Easter Appeal for Easter eggs was almost too successful leaving them with a surplus amount of Easter treats.

Genevieve Waite at Community Solutions said: “BAE Systems and the BT Centre in Accrington both donated about 100 eggs each so in the end we had too many.”

“We donated some ourselves to children’s centres and offered some to the foodbank in Blackburn to try to help them out but luckily they didn’t need them in the end.”