Maccas swaps a can for a cheeseburger

McDonalds restaurants across Hamilton will be handing out cheeseburgers in exchange for cans of food on Tuesday, December 12.

The fast food chain has jumped on board with the Society of St Vincent De Paul can collection this year to boost supplies to the charity's food bank size for the Christmas season.

The general manager of the society, Mike Rolton, is happy that McDonalds is getting involved.

"There is a high demand over Christmas and this will help us out," Mike said.

"From this time last year to now we have doubled the number of food parcels we hand out."

"Last year we averaged 90 parcels a month and this year it is just over 205 a month.

Eight McDonalds in Hamilton along with stores in Te Awamutu, Huntly, Matamata and Cambridge will accept cans on the day from 10.30am until 10.30pm in exchange for a cheeseburger.

The event was only planned three weeks ago but Mike said everything came together very quickly.

"They are very community minded so they came up with this idea of people using their stores to swap a can for a cheeseburger."

Mike originally got involved as he knew there was a need from families that are struggling.

"There is a lot of pressures on families to buy food and gifts at this time of year."

"We thought this would be a great initiative to help the community out.

Mike said the best thing about the event was that a big business like McDonalds was looking after its community.

"They recognise the community needs and are now working with those community people."