A MAN who feeds the needy is calling for all the help he can get – but is drawing the line at exploding tins and half-eaten chocolate.

The Swindon Foodbank has begun its campaign of mammoth collections from schools celebrating the harvest festival, with 21 such collections planned next week alone.

Its project manager Richard Belsham praised some schools whose pupils have gone above-and-beyond in their efforts, and he hopes that the haul he makes over the harvest period will equal last year’s 9.5 tonnes.

This is essential to allow them to cope for the Christmas rush and the warehouse is already running low on supplies.

But the foodbank last year had to dump around about three quarters of a tonne of food, because they cannot give out any tins or packets older than 2008 as part of their regular food parcels.

However, they still offer it as optional extras to those in need, and generally manage to give away about half of his old food.

Mr Belsham, 64, of Covingham, said: “We’ll be running for the next four to five weeks, doing talks in schools and collecting.

“We had 9.5 tonnes last year. I know things are hard for people, but if we could get anywhere near that it’d be brilliant. That’s one-third of our total.

“We need that kind of back-up stock to keep us going.

“At the moment we’re feeding over 90 people, and the week before last we did 118.

“I would imagine we’re going to run up to 200 people a week at Christmas.

“This is absolutely vital to get more. I can give you an example. Normally I hold seven to eight tonnes of food, and I’m down to about three tonnes.”

And he pleaded with donors to be generous, but please be sensible.

“Last week, we had a chocolate bar with teeth marks in it that’d had been taped up. They even put in some cardboard to make it the right shape. We do get some very funny things and we do laugh about it, but the majority is brilliant.”

Their oldest donated item blew up a few weeks ago.

A chemical reaction caused the tin of Heinz beaked beans from 1984 to explode in the cupboard in which it was kept.

The next “longest-serving” tin is some spaghetti from 1997.

He singled Lethbridge Primary School in Old Town out for special praise, after they donated more than half-a-tonne of food on Tuesday.

Yesterday, Mr Belsham was picking up collections from Even Swindon school at St Augustine’s church.

To find out more or contact the bank, visit www.swindonfoodbank.co.uk.