Pettycur Bay make local food bank donation

Soup bags and £570 worth of groceries have been given to the local food bank by the owners of a Fife holiday park.

As part of its fortieth anniversary celebrations, Pettycur Bay Holiday Park, stars of Life on the Bay on BBC, has donated 40 soup bags, together with £570 worth of groceries, to the Burntisland & Kinghorn Food Bank.

James McKay, Head Chef at Horizons, the 100 seater all day restaurant within the holiday park, chopped a selection of seasonal vegetables – which were themselves donated from Horizons supplier, Malcolm Wood of Fresh Express – added stock, and then bagged the mixture into 40 bags, with each bag enough to make a delicious portion of fresh homemade soup for a hungry local person or family.

The bags, together with the groceries, were recently handed over to the Food Bank.

James said: “We are very grateful to Malcolm for donating the vegetables for the soup bags.

“Along with donating badly needed groceries and supplies, we thought we would donate these soup bags, as it’s nice to give a food bank something fresh as well. We’ve made it as easy as possible to make the soup – just add water to the mixture and simmer.”

It was on 19 July 1984 that the Wallace family – Dad Thomas, Mum Magdalene, and sons Tommy and Alan formed a partnership and bought what was then a humble 47 acre camping and caravan park.

Over the years they have built up the business, notable for its sweeping views across the Firth of Forth, and it has become a multi-million-pound, award winning concern. It is still very much the location for caravan holiday homes – albeit far more sophisticated luxury models than were around in 1984 – from some of the UK’s top manufacturers, including Atlas and Carnaby. Over 600 in total are situated on the hills and inclines of the park, either owned by a happy community of owners, or are part of the park’s holiday rental fleet.

Tommy Wallace said: “Along with this food bank donation as a community contribution to mark our forty years of ownership, we held a special Charity Race Night at Pettycur Bay on Friday 19 July – our anniversary day – raising the great total of £2,175 for our three nominated charities – the RNLI, Guide Dogs for the Blind, and the Wolf-Hirschhorn Trust.

“We are delighted to say that we attracted strong levels of sponsorship from local businesses and individuals who got involved in this night,” added Tommy. “I’d like to take the opportunity to thank each and every one of them for their support – we really appreciate it.

“The night was a fantastic opportunity for the community to come together here at Pettycur Bay as it has done many times over the past four decades.”

On behalf of Burntisland & Kinghorn Foodbank, Pat Gibson said: “Our sincere thanks to Pettycur Bay for this incredible donation of both soup bags and groceries which will be very well used in the local community by those still in need of our help.”