Fabulous way to take sting out of summer holidays for parents

With the school summer holidays now upon us, the fact many children will be complaining about being bored already is the least of some parents’ worries.

While some families have the luxury of jetting off to sunny climes or the means to occupy their little ones at outdoor centres and soft play facilities for seven weeks, spare a thought for the mums, dads and carers who do not see the holidays as halcyon days in which to make life-long memories but days filled with anxiety and dread.

People living on low incomes or those already in poverty will see the next seven weeks as an even greater struggle, and costs of entertaining children at home or outside can often be prohibitive. Organised summer camps are great, but they can often be expensive and a luxury too far for some hard-pressed families.

So it’s against that backdrop that Fife Council and its partners have to be applauded for trying to ease the summer holiday burden by providing meals for young people who need them most, and more importantly negating the need for parents to shell out on lunches when their youngsters are normally entitled to free meals at school.

Starting today, the Café Inc project will provide hot meals and packed lunches for youngsters and adult family members at schools and community centres across the kingdom. More than 7,150 hot and cold meals were handed out during a pilot scheme in Cowdenbeath over Easter, and the fact the Plan for Fife estimates more than 24,000 adults in Fife may be experiencing food insecurity – the inability of members of a household to consume adequate quality or sufficient quantity of food that is useful for health – means it is a no-brainer to roll this thing out throughout the region.

Cynics will question the sustainability of such a scheme and bemoan “handouts” but in my book it’s a downright disgrace an initiative to ensure children won’t go hungry in Fife is even needed in 2019.

Special praise also has go to those behind Café Inc and how this project to tackle holiday hunger has been shaped.

The very phrase “holiday hunger” creates a stigma, so the scheme’s advocates have been very careful in moving away from that phrase, as well as taking the focus off the fact meals are being provided.

These will be inclusive sessions for parents and children, and it’s almost as if the lunch aspect is secondary.

It’s certainly not a silver bullet in tackling poverty and all the issues it brings families across Fife – but I reckon it is a worthwhile way of targeting taxpayers’ cash to where it is needed most.

The Cafe Inc initiative is being rolled out following a successful pilot.