Founder of the Esther Community Enterprise (ECE), June Ross-Wildman has pledged her support to Give More - a campaign encouraging people across the UK to give more time, money and energy to causes they care about.

Single mother of two, Mrs Ross-Wildman founded the ECE six years ago to aid the homeless and other socially excluded people in London. Having started her career in social services she knew the plight of the people she would later go on to help.

The 46-year-old said: "I saw how people lived and I could see that benefits weren’t enough. I know people personally who are on benefits and can only just afford to pay their bills. I have seen them at soup kitchens just to feed themselves. With regard to Give More, I saw a need that wasn’t being met and decided something needed to be done."

The ECE relies heavily on volunteers and has little funding. Ross-Wildman went on to say: "I had no resources just a good thought. Since then I’ve been on an amazing journey and have expanded rapidly. We partner with organisations, who find the volunteers and that really brings it home to the community."

Volunteers pick up near-sell-by-date foods from supermarkets and distribute them to those that need it most. "The supermarkets were easy to convince. We are saving them money because it costs for them to throw away perfectly good food. We recently got a contract with Waitrose which means we’re eventually going to go national."