There's loads in the news about Free School Meals at the moment:

BBC: How will the new benefits system affect the Free School Meals system?
BBC: Are pupils eating enough at school?
BBC: A US-style summer school system for the UK.

If you're still considering doing something to support the families facing poverty in your area, it's not too late. A conversation with your local school in the next couple of weeks could see something happening in the summer holidays this year. Download our HOW TO pack now to get started...

** Downloading the pack does require you to register, just so we can keep up with how many packs are out there and where things are happening. Unfortunately we're having a few problems with our system at the moment but please register anyway - once you've done that we'll be able to send you the pack by email. Thanks **

This campaign from the fantastic KidsCompany highlights and tackles exactly the same issues as Lunch. Thousands of children and their families live their daily lives without enough money for food.

Donating to the KidsCo Plate Pledge will help them provide meals for the children they work with in London*.
If you'd like to help children in a similar situation in your area, why not download the Lunch How To pack?
And if you'd like to donate towards the work of Lunch, helping people provide a similar service across the UK, head to the Grassroots website where our fundraising is hosted.

 

* We just want to be clear that Lunch won't receive any of the money donated to the Plate Pledge, but that's OK because they're feeding kids too and doing a fantastic job.

Our "How To" pack is finally here!

One pdf file containing all the information you need to get started running a Lunch project in your community. You can download the pack at www.makelunch.org.uk/do_it

If you download it today, you've got 2 weeks to read it through over the Easter holiday, ready to get in touch with your local school when term starts again in April. Perfect timing for a short week in May half term, or to get the ball rolling for something in the summer holidays.

Things have been a bit quiet on the Make Lunch website for a while but there's plenty going on.  We've been talking through what happened last summer and working out the best way forward from here. There'll be a "how to" pack launching here very soon. Watch this space!

In the meantime, Panorama on BBC 2 this evening is all about kids in similar situations in America. If the rest of the programme is anything like this preview clip it's definitely worth watching. (And it'll be on iPlayer afterwards if you miss it)

"Even if noone comes sometimes, keep it open. It's important"

- the response from one mum after her children were part of the 8 who had lunch at one of the Lunch locations today.

Now that we're over half way through the summer, an update on how the Lunch projects are going is probably long overdue!

Corby

Lunch started in Corby as soon as the schools broke up for the holidays. Nik and Shelly are based on the recreation ground at Butland Road every weekday from 12.30-2pm. After a slow start, and a few windy days holding down the gazebo, a few kids started coming and there's now a regular group who turn up most days. Nik, Shelly and a team of local volunteers make sandwiches for people as they arrive, along with drinks, fruit and home made cakes. Nik says:

"Well the lunching continues and we’ve increased our variety of flapjacks, so far we’ve had honey, Chocolate Apple and Seeds and fruit. All seem to go down well and we are seeing a greater variety in the young people attending the project.  We’ve been keeping folks entertained with french cricket, it is proving very popular and means that player of all ages and abilities can play.  I’ve also been teaching the kids how to kick and pass an American football and they seem to be really getting into this too."

Nik was recently interviewed for the local BBC Radio station.

Luton

In Luton, the team have taken over a small cafe on High Town Road which the owner has very kindly donated to the project for the summer.  They opened last week, teaming serving food with handing out fliers in the local area to raise awareness. Over the week 14 children came in to enjoy a hot meal, number increasing as word spreads. They kicked off their second week today with 8 children.

Chris and Steph, who are co-ordinating the volunteers in Luton, were interviewed for BBC Three Counties Radio recently.

Grangetown

The Grangetown Lunch project is run by Justin and Katie, helped by a visiting team from London. They're running for 1 week, starting today and have been visiting local families for the past couple of weeks to invite them and encourage them to register in advance. By the end of last week, registration was full with 30 children signed up. After their first opening today, Justin said:

"Day 1 in Grangetown - absolutely brilliant, a great response from the children and more signing up at the end of the club! Bring it on!"

Details of how you can register your children to eat in Corby, Grangetown and Luton are available at www.getlunch.org.uk and if you'd like to get involved with helping out at the projects you'll find contact details on the Help pages. We've also been extremely grateful for donations received totalling over £1000 so far - if you'd like to support the work in this way there's information on our Donate page.

Since we started, we've had a little bit of media attention too. As well as the two radio interviews linked above, Lunch was featured in the Times Educational Supplement on 5th August, and on the Sophia Network Blog on 27th July. Last week, as Corby continued and Luton were getting started, Anglia News sent a TV film crew to see what was going on...

On 7th June, the BBC screened a documentary called Poor Kids. Made by Jezza Neumann at TrueVision, the programme showed what life is like for the 3.5million children who live in poverty in the UK. Three children from different areas of the country were the narrators, covering various aspects of life including housing, income, holidays and food.

It's not available to watch on iPlayer at the moment but BBC Three will be showing the programme again on 27th July at 9pm. In the meantime, you can read a blog by the director. It's also available to buy on DVD from TrueVision, or track down a poor quality version on youtube. I'd recommend watching, especially if you were shocked to read that there are children living in poverty in the UK.

Sam, Paige and Courtney's honest account of life was moving and hugely challenging. It's hard to watch children facing difficulties and not be left feeling that something must be done to change things. But 3.5 million children is no small number, and it's the tip of the iceberg, representing families who are struggling with debt, unemployment, addiction... the list is endless. There's no one simple problem here, not one single reason for all these instances of child poverty and therefore no simple solution.

During the programme, 8 year old Courtney shows us what's in her fridge - a bottle of milk, some margarine and 2 bottles of medicine. Later she talks about what she eats during the day: 

Courtney: For dinner we have a big version of a sausage roll

Interviewer: What about breakfast?
C: Nowt. Cos I sometimes forget to make myself some toast or something or we're going to be late for school.

I: Do you ever go without lunch?
C: I go without dinner when I'm at home but when I'm at school I get dinner. I have tea when I'm at home but I sometimes go without dinner because my mum hasn't got enough money and she owes people money.

According to the documentary, 1 in 5 children from low income families say they sometimes go without food. Children from single parent families are twice as likely to miss meals.

Later on in the programme, 11 year old Sam tells us that he's recently started receiving free meals at school. He says it's a good thing because he's getting fed, but the pressure on the family increases during holiday time as his dad has to find £10 extra per week just to feed him. This is true for Sam and many other families - school holidays mean time off school, but bring additional struggles in terms of providing childcare whilst the parent is working, not having enough money to take the children to activities and having to find extra money for food.

It's these simple stories from Paige and Sam that have inspired Lunch. Lunch aims to see the 1.2 million children who receive free meals at school fed during school holidays by local community groups. It's not going to solve the whole problem of child poverty in the UK, but feeding children who might otherwise be hungry during the holidays seems like a good place to start.