A SUPERB late-night effort saw a team of volunteers save 13 tons of York Foodbank supplies.

As the River Foss rose on Saturday night, the charity's warehouse in New Earswick came perilously close to being flooded.

Trustees decided they had to act immediately to protect the goods - and received an amazing response.

Food such as cereals was moved up to the loft, while most supplies were moved to St Andrew's Church in Huntington.

Manager Laura Chalmers said: "I was away in Grimsby with family when I got a call from Caleb Elwood, one of my trustees, who said he was worried about the warehouse.

"It is right on the River Foss in New Earswick. It was 10.30pm, but Caleb said I think we need to get there right now.

"He put out a message on social media saying if anyone could down that would be great."

Laura drove back to York and having checked her house in Clifton was safe, she got to the warehouse around 12.30am.

She said: "There was a group of about 30 or 40 people helping, there were taxi drivers and people with vans and mums with kids in pyjamas.

"A lot of the food had been moved by the time I got there.

"Because we have just had Christmas, the warehouse was as full as it could be. There were 13 tons in there and we moved it out in two hours.

"It was amazing just looking at the convoy of people moving everything.

"The warehouse wasn't actually flooded, but it got really, really close.

"It was about 3.30am by the time we finished, so a massive thank you to everyone who helped."

When the waters have receded sufficiently, Laura hopes Foodbank can get together a similar effort to return the supplies to the warehouse.

The charity, which has bases at Acomb's Gateway Centre, Tang Hall Community Centre, Living Word Church, Huntington and Burton Stone Lane Community Centre, will reopen on Monday.

Laura said: "We work with about 130 referring agencies and have told them to send people affected by the floods to us.

"We are expecting an increased demand for our services."

Anyone willing to help Foodbank at this busy time, should follow their Twitter feed @YorkFoodbank or like the charity on Facebook at www.facebook.com/foodbankinyork/