ASDAAsda home shopping drivers from the Huntly store faced treacherous conditions to ensure that Aberdeenshire villagers cut off by snow could receive fresh food.
The region has been hit by several days of heavy snowfall, causing significant disruption and the closure of over 150 schools.
The extreme weather resulted in the local authority declaring a “major incident” on Tuesday.
A number of villages were cut off due to the adverse conditions, with locals describing it as “one of the worst winters in 25 years”.
Home shopping drivers Meaghan Innes and Trevor Miller from the Asda Huntly store made the journey from Rothiemay to distribute essential supplies free of charge on Thursday after store manager Steve Hulse saw on Facebook that residents were worried about running out of food.
ASDASteve said: “Because of the bad weather we’ve had low footfall in the store, so we had a huge amount of products that were due to be reduced – staples such as meat, bread and vegetables, etc. We thought, ‘we have a community 20 minutes from the shop that is desperate for food, and here we have all this food’.
“We spoke to the food banks, and they weren’t able to collect and deliver until next week, so we thought, if the food banks can’t do it, then we need to do it.”
He spoke to Trevor and Meaghan, who were about to finish work for the day, and they volunteered to drive to Rothiemay to distribute the food.
Steve said: “Meaghan and Trevor had just come back from a run and were looking forward to going home – they’d got their scarves on, ready to go. I said ‘this is what I want to do, is there anything you can do?’ and they said yes immediately.
“Trevor said he knew all the customers as he’d been delivering there for 20 years, and he knew which houses we needed to target.”
The store posted on the North East Fubar News page on Facebook to say that help was on its way.
Steve said: “When they got there in the van, everyone was so delighted to see them. People were queuing in the street waiting, bearing in mind it was -12C. They’d had no access to food supplies for eight days.
“After handing out a lot of the food, the guys then walked around local cottages where they knew there were infirm or disabled people who were unable to get to the square.
ASDA“They also dropped food at sheltered housing on the way back.”
Trevor and Meaghan’s fellow drivers, Anthony Redmond and Peter Duguid, took another van out with free food to villagers in Kennethmont.
Steve said: “It was great to see that we made a difference. It was a great effort as driving in these conditions is not easy. I’m hugely proud of everyone. They were absolutely passionate about helping their customers.
“Today is the first time we’ve had no snow this year, so we are attempting to deliver to more customers as long as it is safe to do so.”
The Met Office has issued a yellow alert for snow and ice on Saturday and Sunday, extending an initial alert which was due to end at noon on Friday.
The new warning now covers almost all of the country until 3pm on Saturday. Then another alert for snow and ice comes into force around 2am on Sunday until 3pm.
As much as 10cm of snow could fall locally, while higher areas could see as much as 30cm of snowfall.
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