Legana News and Lotto owner Phil Richards said it was a great cause. 

“It’s locals helping locals, and it’s a great cause,” he said. 

“It’s the second year we’ve done it and we had a great response then as well. But the response this year has been a little bit better already.” 

Mr Richards said most people had been “pretty generous”. 

“People say ‘I’m just heading into the supermarket now, i’ll grab something’, or they’ll go back and get something to donate,” he said. 

“It’s nice to be able to help out and give back to the local community who support local business.” 

He said he was not aware there was such a need for items like this before the campaign started. 

“It does bring awareness to the situation and exactly how bad it is. You read in the papers about homelessness and people living in caravans … it’s bringing out that the issue is there,” he said. 

The store’s manager Lihanna Hinds people had been donating lots of toiletries, pasta packets, dried food\ and long-life milk.

Launched on March 26, Fairfax Tasmania’s Mission Possible campaign aims to collect 30,000 items for City Mission by May 6.

About 3000 families in the North and North-West received assistance as part of the first campaign held last year.

Donation collection points can be found here.