£2m funding boost for holiday food scheme
MORE than £2million will be invested in extending a project which ensures children get a hot meal over the school holidays.
Glasgow councillors have approved applications to be included in the holiday food programme from 70 organisations across every ward in the city.
Almost 20,000 children participated in the projects being served by the scheme last year.
City Treasurer Allan Gow said: “The programme makes a hot meal and snack available to nursery, primary and secondary pupils during school holiday periods.
“It is making a real difference to the lives of hundreds of families and the health of thousands of children.
“This is an invaluable service for families in Glasgow. Many struggle to feed their children, let alone during school holidays.
“By being able to provide third sector organisations with the means to deliver a continued programme of fun packed projects, we’re seeing a real difference in the lives and well-being of so many youngsters.”
Since the scheme was introduced in summer 2018, £3.7m has been spent on providing meals.
There will be around £2.3m invested over this year, with almost £350,000 carried over from last year.
But 26 organisations were unsuccessful in their bids for funding for 2020/21.
Councillor Maureen Burke said she was concerned about children potentially not receiving a meal and asked if other third sector projects would take up the provision.
A council officer said: “We’ve not yet spoken to any of the organisations about how they might compensate. As part of our feedback we’ll be encouraging more partnership working.”
And Mr Gow added: “Every ward has coverage, in some parts of the city there’s a growth in coverage, in other parts of the city there’s a reduction in coverage.
“On this occasion, 26 have been unsuccessful, that doesn’t necessarily mean that there is no programme run by those organisations.”
Councillor Frank McAveety asked whether any money could be found to help some of the projects which lost out.
Mr Gow said at this stage the current funding is “about as much as we can do”. He added the scheme would be evaluated after the summer and the council will assess whether £2m is sufficient or needs to be increased.
“While our holiday food programme focuses on the provision of food, feedback shows that it brings with it a host of other benefits from socialising more, exploring new foods, eating healthy food, learning cooking skills, being more active and interacting with other children and their peers,” Mr Gow said.
“We remain committed to tackling food poverty and look forward to working with third sector organisations to deliver this invaluable programme again this year.”