School provides parents with a £1 weekly shop during lockdown
FOOD CHARITY FARESHARE SAYS PRODUCE THEY HAVE REDISTRIBUTED HAS INCREASED FIVE-FOLD
AHULL primary school where parents could do a weekly shop for £1 had to get creative so they could continue offering support during three national lockdowns.
In summer 2020, Chiltern Primary School set up a pop-up food bank after lockdown closed the school so they could continue supporting families with their Chat and Choose Fareshare initiative.
Assistant head Claire Lundie and school wellbeing officer Lisa Greig normally run the event at the school every Thursday morning, where parents can choose six different items of fresh, dried or chilled food that would have otherwise gone to waste.
Users of the scheme, who could also get tea and coffee at the event, paid £1 per week for the service, which is part of Fareshare, a national food redistribution charity set up to fight food waste and tackle hunger.
But after the Chiltern Street-based school had to shut due to lockdown, the organisers had to get creative.
Each week the Fareshare delivery is distributed into food parcels that parents collect at 11am every Thursday using a socially distanced outdoor queuing system.
Parents wear masks and around 75 parcels are given to families each week, while Claire and Lisa also deliver food parcels when completing socially distanced home visits to support families.
Chiltern’s School Nurse, Rachael Ramage, also welcomes parents on to the school site and offers medical help and advice where needed.
Mrs Lundie said: “Chiltern Primary School feels very thankful and fortunate to have received generous donations from a variety of sources who also wanted to support the children and families in their school and local community.
“It is heart-warming and very comforting for our families at this very difficult time.
“These include Hull Vineyard, who donate five family selection packs per week that we give to five different families. Back Pack Buddies, who are partnered with Fareshare, have also donated to our families to help supply children with a backpack of food for the weekend.
“Fareshare have also made free surplus stock available to collect through the Fareshare Go scheme, which has been great for us to add to our supplies and enable us to create more parcels to help more families.
“The quality of food that we have been able to offer our parents has been excellent.
“To help support our families is always our priority and particularly so during these difficult times, so to hear the positive feedback from the families about the parcels they receive is heartwarming.”
Amy Southwick, a parent at Chiltern Primary School, said: “The weekly food parcels are a brilliant selection of food.
“I have four children and the parcel fills my cupboards. It is a real support for my family during a very anxious and difficult time.”
A spokeswoman for Fareshare said: “Fareshare Hull and Humber is a surplus food redistribution charity, that aims to prevent food waste while simultaneously reducing food poverty.
“The food we provide is donated from the food industry and is always in date and of excellent quality, it is surplus because of over production, barcoding errors or packaging issues.
“We currently deliver to around 170 different charities and community groups across our region, who work on the front line, providing food and wrap around support to vulnerable people and families.
“We deliver to a whole range of organisations: schools, food banks, homeless hostels, community cafes and more. The food we provide is used in a variety of ways, but is all used to support those who are facing food poverty and/or insecurity in the region, which is from Lincoln up to Whitby.
“Since Lockdown 1 in March 2020 the amount of food we have redistributed each month has increased immensely - from 35 tonnes up to 180 tonnes a month at the peak in 2020.
“In 2020 we redistributed enough food across the region for 3.5 million meals (in 2019 we redistributed less than 1 million), and we could not have done this without the incredible work of our Community Food Members, like Chiltern Primary School.
“Chiltern Primary School was one of our first members to run a Community Shop, switching up from a food bank and offering their families the choice of the food they receive each week. This removes any stigma attached to using a food bank, but still allows families to receive food at a low cost and highlighting the issue of food waste.
“During the lockdown, it has become difficult for all of our members to provide an open Community Shop, but it has been fantastic to see so many organisations continue to work to provide their families with this food throughout the pandemic, even when this is not their primary service.”