Asking for local support for the #EndChildFoodPoverty campaign
Today, we have written to local MPs and Councillors to ask for their support towards the nationwide #EndChildFoodPoverty campaign - something which, as a local school meals charity, we wholeheartedly support. You can read the letter that we have sent below.
You can also help the campaign by adding your name to the list and writing to your MP or sharing this post on your social media to ask your family and friends to do the same. Together, we can #EndChildFoodPoverty.
Dear MPs & Councillors,
I wanted to write today to request your support for the #EndChildFoodPoverty campaign on behalf on Southampton’s families – many whom we serve on a daily basis in our schools. As a school meals charity, serving over 9,000 young people hot, compliant and nutritious meals every lunchtime – we understand the value of accessible good food.
The campaign asks for three things, in order to ensure that every child at risk of going hungry has access to good food, every day. Please can you support them, ahead of the forthcoming Spending Review, to ensure that timely support during the nation’s recovery from the pandemic is in place?
Firstly, the expansion of Free School Meals for all children in households earning less than £20,000 after benefits and to children living in households with no recourse to public funds. We have seen during the pandemic how vital this scheme is for many families. By having access to balanced, hot meals during school, we can help protect childhood nutrition and ensure that they are more able to eat the recommended 5-a-day of fruit and vegetables, reduce reliance on ultra-processed and/or high fat, sugar and salt foods, and explore and enjoy new flavours. We know the long-term value on a good diet for children and its power in reducing diseases in the future. We must ensure that we offer our young children the absolute best opportunity to thrive.
Secondly, providing sustainable long-term funding from the Holidays, Activities and Food Fund. This year saw the nation provide HAF funded activities that were bigger, better and more accessible than ever before. A milestone for the programme – something we are proud to champion, support and be part of by serving 13,000 meals locally over 5 weeks. However, the programme now needs to become sustainable in order to ensure value for money for the taxpayer, and provide quality, safe and consistent support for those attending. This not only benefits families and their children – but providers too, many of whom will be community organisations and charities (just like us) who have been impacted by the pandemic and may therefore be less agile in their abilities to support this vital programme in the way that they know is best.
Thirdly, the campaign asks for the expansion of Healthy Start to all households earning less than £20,000 after benefits during pregnancy or with children under the age of five – together with adequate promotion of the campaign to ensure its uptake. We know that the scheme is a vital mechanism to protecting the health of children in the early years period and we must value the opportunity to ensure that they can access and enjoy good, fresh, healthy food and protect their development and wellbeing.
The inclusion of all of these asks in the forthcoming Spending Review has the ability to protect the nation’s health - and its wealth– in the future. The return on investment for protecting a child’s access to good food must be recognised. Not only would it prevent diseases and the increasing strain and challenge for the NHS, but it will also help today’s children have more vibrant, healthy and successful adulthoods in order to achieve and thrive in whatever their future holds.
As a local charity and a community organisation present in Southampton for over 25 years – supporting and feeding the youngest and eldest on a daily basis - we value the holistic power that good food has. We now ask you to do the same, and urge Government to put our young people’s health first in order to protect their futures.
Yours sincerely,
Jessica Clasby-Monk, Charitable Impact Manager