Cash and food are given to charity by supermarket

The Tesco Extra store in North Harbour, Portsmouth donated £1,000 and £250 worth of food to Catherine Booth House – a hostel in Portsmouth run by the Salvation Army.

It provides temporary, furnished accommodation and housing support for couples with children, male and female single-parent families and pregnant mothers.

The service, in St Paul’s Road, Southsea, offers a safe, secure and supportive environment for vulnerable families.

Vanessa Weeks, programme co-ordinator for Catherine Booth House, went into the store on Clement Attlee Way where community champion Mandi Myers presented her with the £1,000 cheque and donated food.

Mandi said: ‘The store team are delighted to be supporting Catherine Booth House, it does such valuable work for the Portsmouth community and we wanted to give them something as a little thanks. We hope the £1,000 donation and food will help families at the hostel who are in need.’

Vanessa said: ‘We are very grateful to Tesco for its generosity in providing hampers and for their cheque of £1,000.

‘This will ensure that we are able to make Christmas a special and memorable time for all of the families, especially the children, within the Lifehouse.

‘Catherine Booth House has offered temporary accommodation with support to vulnerable families in Portsmouth since 1980.

‘The support programme aims to enable families to enhance their independent living skills in order to move on to more permanent accommodation usually through the Portsmouth City Council housing department’s supported housing scheme.’