We are thrilled to be able to support additional households across the town during the school holiday period, following a successful bid by Calico Homes to DEFRA’s Covid-19 Food Charity Grant Scheme.
The £64,286 received will be used to provide food parcels for families and to help cover costs for community kitchens providing meals to children over this coming holiday period until the start of the new school term.
Hunger amongst children during the holiday periods is a very real problem each year, affecting families not only during the holidays, but afterwards when children return to school, when detrimental effects on their physical and mental wellbeing, as well as their learning, are noticeable.
This year, the problem will be heightened by the continuing economic impact of the current crisis. We anticipates that families who are already on reduced incomes, and who also have children out of school will be hardest hit.
Since March, we have supported over 1800 households, and coordinated the delivery of more than 4,460 food parcels, so the demand for our service is still very much there.
This latest initiative will be coordinated with our partners Burnley Leisure coordinating the storage and distribution of food for families in need.
We are also pleased to be working with the community and voluntary sector services including Participation Works, Charter House, Ghausia Mosque, Gannow Community Centre, Stoops and Hargher Clough Community Centre, Burnley FC in the Community, Burnley Boys Club, and Northern Community Networks to provide a network of community food hubs.
Announcing the new programme, Phil Jones from Calico said:
“We’ve already seen how our communities have come together throughout the current pandemic, and the work with partners around the summer holiday project has been no different. We’re pleased to be able to bring this extra food capacity into Burnley for the summer holidays which will hopefully mean that no child will need to go hungry”
Councillor Charlie Briggs, leader of Burnley Council, said: “This is another example of partners pulling together to help those less fortunate through difficult times.
“Burnley Together continues to provide much-needed support to those hardest hit by the coronavirus pandemic and I very much welcome this latest initiative.”