She plays a crucial role in providing a safety net for hard-pressed Dalbeattie families trying to juggle budgets as the cost of everything from fish fingers to firelighters continues to spiral upwards.
And if it’s something of a scandal that in 21st century Scotland the town needs a foodbank at all, development officer Donna McKnight just gets on with the job.
The 38-year-old mum-of-two herself didn’t have the easiest start to life, losing her father Mark Amos when she was a four-month-old baby.
Mark and four other crew members perished when the Kirkcudbright scalloper Mhari-L sank off the Isle of Man with the loss of all hands.
“When I was born in October 1984 we were staying in the cottages off the A75 heading up the hill to Twynholm,” Donna tells me.
“Then on February 20, 1985 the Mhari-L went down. My dad Mark Amos was on that scallop boat and was one of the five men lost – he was only 21 when he died.
“I was just four months old so I never knew my dad. I don’t even have a photo of me and him together.
“There is one of my mum and dad and me just after I was born – my nana took the photo but only managed to get the top of my hair!
“She always says such lovely things about my dad.
“I have known about what happened to him my whole life, it was never kept from me.
“When I was wee I would always say my dad’s up in heaven.
“He had two brothers and it was hard for everybody to move on from it.”
Although the tragedy happened more than 38 years ago, Donna feels strongly that not enough has been done to commemorate the men who were lost.
“There are quite a few folk that think the Mhari-L gets forgotten about,” she says simply.
“There’s nothing about the boat anywhere.
“In 2015, with the 30th anniversary coming up, there was nothing happening and nothing in the papers.
“I voiced my frustration and it was arranged for a candlelit vigil to be held at the harbourside, attended by a representative of the Fishermen’s Mission.
“At least that allowed families and members of the community to come and pay their respects.
“There was meant to be a plaque put on the harbour wall.
“I don’t know why it never materialised.”
“My nana kept a scrap book of all the newspaper clippings from the time after the boat went down,” she adds.
“It will be the 40th anniversary of the sinking in 2025.
“And perhaps it would be nice for all the families if the men of the Mhari-L could be commemorated properly.
“They are definitely not forgotten by any of those families – I know a few of them and the men will always be remembered.”
Growing up, Donna recalls, was made easier by a loving family.
“There was me and my mum and my nana and papa, Carolyn Maxwell and Fred Crosbie, in Kirkcudbright,” she tells me.
“I had moved to Dalbeattie when I was baby and they moved here when I was 11 to take over the Maxwell Arms for a few years.
“So I spent my teenage years at my nana and papa’s pub – back in those days the pubs were always busy.”
Donna attended Dalbeattie Primary School and Dalbeattie High School, after which love arrived on the scene.
“I met my husband Andrew when I was 17,” she smiles.
“We were married in August 2005 when I was 20 and we have two kids, Faye, who’s 18, and Ethan, who’s 15.”
The McKnight family also includes two dogs, ageing sprocker spaniel Nessa and Lottie, a hairy black Lhasa Apso-Jack Russell cross with attitude.
Then there’s misgendered cat Bruce – who is actually a girl.
“We thought she was a boy when we got her,” laughs Donna.
“It turned out she wasn’t but she’s answered to Bruce ever since.
“As a family we are very water orientated and love paddle boarding, kayaking and scuba diving.
“I did lots of wee jobs over the years and worked for Caterbirds, who did events like weddings and special occasions.
“Andy worked at Howie’s sawmill then residential care before deciding to do nursing.
“He’s now an anaesthetic theatre nurse at DGRI.”
Donna tells me she and Mark have recently become members of Dalbeattie’s community volunteer first responders team, led by Amanda Macaulay.
It’s a cause very close to her heart – in every sense of the word.
“For my part, a few years ago my papa suffered a cardiac arrest on December 10, 2017 – the same day patients were getting transferred to the new DGRI.
“My nana phoned my husband but he was at work so I went up and gave my papa CPR until a nurse arrived.
“I didn’t succeed and that’s something you don’t get over. I felt guilty because I was not able to save my papa.
“Could I have got there quicker? Did I do the CPR right?
“Andy told me not to think that because I had done the absolute best I could.
“But that whole experience drove me towards the first responders, where I could be in a position of being able to take that terrible responsibility out of somebody’s hands, and make that difference in keeping someone alive.
“There’s nine of us in the team and Mark and I are the newest recruits.
“We also do the maintenance of all the defibrillators dotted around the town to keep them up to standard.”
“Amanda also teaches people heart start and basic first aid skills,” she adds.
“We’ve already had the team out to show people how everything works.
“We have done all our training and everybody has been really welcoming,”
“It’s a volunteer service – we’re there to help out the community and hopefully save somebody’s life and help them until an ambulance gets there.
“Those first eight minutes after a heart attack are critical – the quicker you can get on that chest the better the outcome is likely to be.
“Dalbeattie has no ambulance station or hospital so that makes it even more important to have this service in the town.”
The food bank, Donna
tells me, opened during Covid when she was a student studying for an
HNC in childcare at
Dumfries College.
“Dalbeattie Community Initiative (DCI) had advertised for volunteers to help run the food bank and as I had some time on my hands I signed up,” she says.
“The initiative was in partnership with social services and asked for a co-ordinator to be put in place.
“I was approached and was a bit hesitant because I had never done anything like that before.
“I officially took over as
co-ordinator in November 2020 during Covid. It was really busy and restrictions were quite tough.
“We were doing 54 food packages a week and if a person was isolating with no way of getting food we would deliver it and leave it at their door.”
In July 2022 the partnership with social services ended and the operation was run solely by DCI.
And making the foodbank a Dalbeattie “in house” operation has been beneficial, Amanda reckons.
“The good thing about being on our own is that it has made it possible to spread our wings more.
“Dalbeattie Food Bank now is an umbrella organisation and we are there to help and support everybody in and around the town.
“In the last 12 months we have taken on another six projects – our Christmas hampers service, which we start to organise in mid-November.
“We got a kind donation for them from the Bert and Ruth Dunn Trust, a local charity that gives financial and other support to people who were born in the town of Dalbeattie.
“We have a grant from them to fund the hampers for three years, until 2024.
“We also do school lunch bags for the kids during on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays during the summer holidays, when it can be a big struggle for families.
“My mum Angela Amos runs the Granite Kitchen and she kindly makes all the sandwiches for us.
“Our school clothes project, which runs in conjunction with the lunch bags, has rails of donated new or good condition clothes, shoes and schoolbags for people to come in and see if there’s anything they need.
“Then there’s the free seed project, supported by Dalbeattie Garden Centre to try and encourage people to grow their own vegetables.
“Some people don’t have a garden so we offer vouchers that can access them grow bags and compost bags, with seed tatties donated by the garden centre.
“We want to promote people’s independence and we already have nine or 10 takers.
“If folk grow their own tatties maybe they’ll be thinking what else can I grow?
“Also, after the Scottish Government decided that women should not have to pay for period products, we run a pick up service for anybody who needs them – women just need to pop in.
“Lastly, we are in partnership with Dumfries and Galloway Council’s lifelong learning team where we join ladies at the lesser town hall every Monday from 1pm to 3pm for digital skills sessions.
“There’s also a craft group where local women have a cup of tea and a chat while they do cross-stitching and embroidery.”
Meanwhile, the food bank continues to grow.
“Wednesday is when a lot of out orders come in and a load of stock comes down from FareShare in Glasgow,” Donna says.
“They distribute quality surplus food to groups working with vulnerable people in the city and west of Scotland.
“Most weeks we are able to put stuff out on a stall on the street
“The goods are free to take away but a lot of folk will take a few things and pop in to make a small donation, which is great.
“We can get anything sent down – one time we got three crates of courgettes!
“But as time goes on you have to continually adapt and evolve your model of how you continue to help people
“DCI are a really great organisation to work for and have helped me a lot.
“They have been really positive about all the projects we are doing with the food bank.”
“You try to help your customers with any issues as much as possible and help them to be as self-reliant as possible,” she adds.
“Our door is always open and we have a lot of the wider community come in to
have a chat and leave a donation.
“Sometimes people share their problems with us – I know I might be the only person they speak to that day.
“If you can spare 10 minutes to have a chat with someone that can really help.”
