720 meals delivered to 180 vulnerable families

Providing hot meals for our partner schools’ most vulnerable families

With your help, we have delivered 720 meals to 180 vulnerable families in our local partner schools to date. The feedback from the schools is overwhelmingly positive. Children have loved the food and parents who are struggling at the moment have appreciated some much-needed respite and have really valued our help.

Our programme was initially set up to deliver food to four of our partner schools – Christ Church, Falconbrook, Goldfinch and Langford Primaries – but we have just added a fifth school, Fulham Primary, who participate in our Primary Ambitions programme. They have many international families who are really struggling with the strain of running a household and maintaining learning – which is particularly difficult for parents who speak little or no English, or who were educated in another country. Fulham Primary staff have been donating food to their own in-school food bank to try to address the food deficit. Our provision of a hot, nutritious family meal helps alleviate some of this stress and worry.

As you know, many families in our local area are continuing to struggle to buy food. They receive Free School Meals vouchers but these take a long time to process and only cover a small amount towards children’s lunches. Providing vouchers also poses its own difficulties as many families find it difficult to go to the supermarket to use them. For example, a single mother with three or more children finds shopping and social distancing extremely challenging. Many parents are not going outside for fear of the virus or because a family member or their child suffers from a severe medical condition. Some families are eligible to attend their local food banks; however, this requires a referral from their schools and the need to meet a set of criteria before being able to gain access. Our families are finding it increasingly hard to put food on the table so the help we are providing is targeting a very real need.

With your help, and the fabulous support of the 17 Emanuel staff food delivery volunteers, we will continue to provide meals each day to vulnerable families at our local partner schools for the next few weeks. If primary schools stay closed in June, we will review our plans with the view of extending this provision.

It costs just £5 to provide a healthy and delicious meal for a family of four. If you are interested in supporting our hot meals scheme, please donate below.

• £5 provides a meal for a family of four
• £20 provides four families with a meal
• £50 provides 10 families with a meal
• £100 provides 20 families with a meal
• £500 provides 20 families with a meal for a week