TWO community-minded volunteers in Santa Claus hats will be knocking on doors in Minehead over the next three weekends hoping that the town’s Christmas spirit will benefit those down on their luck.

Hair salon owner Dan James and his friend Chris Jones will be touring the streets on Saturdays and Sundays collecting non-perishable food to be distributed over Christmas by the Minehead Food Cupboard food bank.

The collection is the latest project of Dan’s ‘Mr SE’ community organisation which supports three local charities – the Food Cupboard, the RNLI and Sure cancer support.

“Most people can find a tin of something in their cupboard or larder that they haven’t got around to opening, but which could make a difference to someone less fortunate, particularly at Christmas,” Dan said.

“Tesco have kindly lent us a trolley and we will be visiting as many streets as possible over the next three weekends from 9am on Saturdays and 10.30 on Sundays.

“We hope to distribute leaflets beforehand so that people are not taken by surprise when we arrive. Anyone who will be out could always leave something with a neighbour.”

Dan hopes that this will only be the first of a number of Mr SE schemes to boost the community spirit in the town: “A little help from a lot of people can make a real difference,” he said.