School to open shop to help struggling families

A primary school plans to open a not-for-profit shop for struggling parents.

Bede Community Primary School, on Old Fold Road, plans to open a not-for-profit venue on-site to help parents through the cost of living crisis.

The shop will supply items such as discounted toiletries and secondhand school uniforms.

The shop will also provide ‘Feeding Family Boxes’ free of charge for parents in need. The idea has been supported with just under £3,000 in community funds from local councillors from both the Felling and Bridges wards.

Gillian McTeer, Bede Primary’s business manager said: “It is something we felt that we really wanted to do to help parents. Our local councillors have been amazing, they have a community fund and they’ve given us community funding to buy our first lot of goods.”

Mrs McTeer continued: “We felt that although we are an educational establishment we need to help our parents.” She went on to say the school’s head teacher, Nick Anderson, was “one of the main drivers” for the proposals.

The planned opening times are three mornings a week from 8.30am to 9.15am and twice a week in the afternoon from 2.45pm to 3.30pm.

It is hoped the shop will be up and running by either next week or the week after.

Bridges councillor Angela Douglas said while she and her fellow councillors were “more than happy” to support the school’s not-for-profit plans, she felt it was “bittersweet”.

Coun Douglas said: “It is an excellent idea but it shouldn’t need to be done.

“People should be able to live and there should be enough funding coming in from the central government.”

According to Gateshead Foodbank, the organisation gave out emergency food parcels to 1,240 people between January 1 and the end of February this year across its centres in central Gateshead, Birtley, and Blaydon. Of these, 852 were adults and 388 were children.