When lockdown started, and my husband Gordon and I were furloughed by our respective employers, the prospect of staying at home every day filled us with dread.

Initially I set up a volunteer group on Facebook to assist with delivering prescriptions to residents in our village, Old Kilpatrick.

We then started going for groceries for vulnerable people and I regularly used to video our shopping trips and post them on our community page to let those people who were stuck at home have a wee road trip with us to pass the boredom.

As the weeks passed, we began dropping off food donated by local shops to a few food banks in Clydebank and Glasgow.

I soon found myself asking why we were taking food out of our local area and not donating to a local food bank.

That’s when we discovered there wasn’t a food distribution project between Bowling, Old Kilpatrick and Dalmuir.

Over breakfast one morning I announced, “I want to set up a food bank – I don’t know how to start but I just feel that we have to do something to help our community.”

That was on May 1. A chance meeting with a member of staff from the Twisted Thistle restaurant in Old Kilpatrick resulted in us having premises to distribute items, and then we visited Tricia Lorimer at Faifley Foodshare to ask for some guidance which was invaluable. Gordon and I then purchased our first lot of basic food items to add to donations we received from Tricia.

Five days later, on May 6, Old Kilpatrick Food Parcels was born and we provided emergency food parcels to 12 families on our first day.

Three months down the line we now have three distribution locations and a team of fabulous volunteers providing food parcels to more than 140 people every week.

A lot of people are reluctant to reach out and ask for help - we understand that, however, no one will judge you, no one will question you and no one will turn you away.

We hope to use this column to answer your questions on food banks, food poverty and any other issue related to food insecurity – you can send us your questions by email to oldkilpatrickfoodparcels@gmail.com or via Messenger on our Facebook page.

Let us help you – if you require emergency food, you can call or text us on 07368 496836.

Please don’t struggle on your own.