Brighton based Lunch kitchen, aka Chomp has made it into the local paper. Here's their report ...

Some of the 11,000 children in poverty in Brighton and Hove are being fed for free through the school holidays.

New social project Chomp has been started by a Brighton church to feed low-income families who struggle for the 13 weeks of a year when their children aren’t at school.

Launched at the beginning of the Easter holidays, the lunch club was full within days as families learnt about the hot and nutritional meals on offer at the church’s base in Gloucester Place between noon and 2pm.

Coordinator Amy Goodwin has worked with head teachers at St Martin’s and Fairlight schools in Brighton, two of the schools with the highest percentage of free school meals in the country.

She said: “A lot of families rely on free school meals that are only available during the term time.

“We wanted to continue that so the children are able to get something to eat during the school holidays.

"It’s a time when parents struggle most to buy food, especially things that are nutritionally healthy to feed to their children.

“We’re hoping that if this is successful we might be able to promote it further so other churches can take on other areas of Brighton and Hove.”

Last year, The Argus reported how desperate mothers had been known to take their children to the homeless project run by the Salvation Army in the school holidays.

The Chomp scheme is part of national scheme Lunch, which encourages community groups to provide meals for hungry children in the school holidays.

Aimed to be hot and nutritional, meals have ranged from fish with handmade chips and vegetables and feed the whole family.

Miss Goodwin said: “One family came on Monday and then every day after. It’s been really encouraging.

“Another mother said it was the most she had seen her son eat, in terms of size and variety. He even went back for seconds.

“There was another little boy who came with his mother on Friday and she said she was really glad they made the effort to come.

“Some of them are single parent families but we don’t go into deep conversations with people about their circumstances.

“We don’t means-assess people, we don’t feel it’s our place, we’re just inviting people to come along.”

Register with Chomp for lunchtime meals by contacting MS Goodwin on 01273 694746 or emailing amy@one churchbrighton.org

Just wanted to share this post from Lunch Founder, Rach Warwick's blog ... it's about the latest book from the hugely inspirational Camilla Batmanhhelidjh.

This latest book by the founder of KidsCompany was published last Thursday, 7th March as part of a new series by Penguin which includes 1 book for each of the London Underground Lines.

To celebrate the 150th anniversary of the tube, Penguin asked 12 writers to tell their story of London as a city in 15,000 words or less.

Camila and the children of KidsCompany represent the Victoria Line.

Children who have grown up in extreme poverty in the "underground" London that most people never see tell their own stories with heartbreaking clarity, interspersed with psychology and understanding from Camila which explain how neglect, abuse and violence damage children in their early developmental stages with deep consequences in later life.

The work of KidsCompany with children such as those in the book is fantastic, drawing vulnerable children into a safe family-like environment where they find help, therapy, encouragement, practical support such as an allowance or a decorated bedroom, access to education and much much more. Sadly it's far from enough. KidsCo covers a large area of South London and recently opened in Bristol too. But the stories you'll read in Mind The Child echo in towns and cities across the UK.

The Easter hols are fast approaching and plans for Lunch kitchens across the UK are taking shape, as well as a number of established teams we say "hello" to some new kitchens!

Joing the adventure are Barnet, Brighton, Milton Keynes and Norwich. We look forward to sharing their stories once school is back.

If you are running a kitchen this time or the summer, can you do us a favour? Please send us numbers for how many children you feed and how many volunteers helped you to do it. It's amazing to see how many lives we're touching and how many people are connecting with their communitiy in a new way.

Don't forget to galvinise support for your efforts amongst your community, to help why not take part in #LetThemEatCake. Simply bake a cake and share our film with some friends. Spreading the word about Lunch will help us get more kitchens open and more hungry tummies filled.

We really hope you have a great time this holiday, we're praying that hungry children will join us for Lunch and that communities are strengthened through the new relationships made.

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