THE start of the school summer holidays has piled on the pressure at foodbanks across Dorset as holiday hunger takes hold.

Centres are expecting more families to call on their services to put food on the table as the school holidays continue.

While some are appealing for more donations, other groups need additional volunteers to help cope with sorting and packing food so it can be distributed to those in need.

Bournemouth Foodbank, which is part of the Trussel Trust network, is expecting to support more families during the summer break.

Nationally the trusts food banks handed out 1,813 tonnes of food for emergency support, while 1,649 tonnes were donated across the 428 food banks.

The Trussell Trust has called for more donations to meet the increased demands, while the Government said it recently announced a £2 million fund for organisations to support disadvantaged families during the school holidays.

Ed Briggs, operations manager at Bournemouth Foodbank, said: "We are anticipating a busy time now the schools are off and families who normally are able to access free school meals are going to really feel the pinch.

"We would hugely welcome any support coming from the Government to ease the load on families, particularly during the summer holidays with the increased cost of living.

"The last financial year was 23 per cent up on the previous year. We think that in part due to the affects of universal credit."

Current priorities for the food bank include tinned meat and UHT milk. Donations can be made to the food bank at any of the five distribution centres, which are spread across Bournemouth.

More details can be found online at bournemouth.foodbank.org.uk

Charity Hope for Food appealed for more volunteers to help deal with donations and bags to package up their holiday hunger parcels.

Each week the group is handing out around 159 hampers per week to families who need help to put food on the table throughout the summer break.

Jane Hancox, Hope for Food communications officer, said they had been "overwhelmed" by donations after a month's food was stolen during a break-in back in June.

"People's generosity is amazing and hopeful we continue to receive donations for harvest so we can offer the hampers in the next school holidays," she said. "The main thing we need at the moment is more people to help us sort through the food and give it out at the unit.

"Our support area has grown and we have now got schools from Poole contacting us and recommending families."

To volunteer at Hope for Food contact volunteer@hopeforfood.org.uk

In Christchurch, the large Sainsburys supermarket on Lyndhurst Road officially launched its charity partner of the year, Christchurch Foodbank.

As reported by the Daily Echo last month, the food bank was working to prepare up to 200 holiday hunger packs to support families throughout the summer.

For more details go to faithworkswessex.org.uk/our-projects/hope-crisis-food-bank-plus/christchurch/.