The Caines family hope to provide food and other items to 500 families in need this holiday season.

Wayne Caines, a Progressive Labour Party MP for Devonshire North West, said that food parcels worth about $10,000 were dropped off at the Hamilton Seventh-day Adventist Church youth centre between 8am and 1pm today.

He believed that $250,000-worth of items will be donated by the time the drive closes at 8pm.

Donations will benefit the feeding programmes at the Salvation Army, Home, the Hamilton Seventh-day Adventist Church and the Eliza DoLittle Society.

Mr Caines said: “We have to realise that everybody can fall on hard times, and it’s our responsibility as a community to help each other.

“I believe this is an opportunity to help each other.

“We are not trying to reinvent the wheel, but trying to find people and organisations that are in need and say, ‘This is how we want to support you’.”

Mr Caines, who is also the president of Belco, hopes the items will benefit families through the Christmas season.

He said about 50 people signed up to volunteer for today’s drive.

Jennifer Booth, who moved to Bermuda from Massachusetts in August, volunteered as a way to meet new people and to address food insecurity.

She said: “Everyone has been wonderful, all the volunteers are anxious to help and it has been running really smoothly.

“Everyone should do something to help those less fortunate – there’s a great need here, and everyone should try in some small way to make that better for others.”