Over 149,000 meals delivered through our summer programme

16th October 2020

Food insecurity and social isolation has become a reality for even more families in London due to the devastating economic impact of COVID-19.

Our Summer of Food and Fun holiday provision programme, delivered in partnership with Lambeth and Southwark Councils and funded by the Department for Education, aimed to tackle these issues head on.

Through the programme, we served over 149,000 meals to over 6,000 children across both boroughs. We couldn’t have achieved this without the support of our 80 Kitchen Social youth clubs, schools and children’s centres, churches, adventure playgrounds and community centres who worked so hard to make the programme a success.

As part of the offer, we introduced Take & Make boxes; providing families with a weekly box of nutritious, portioned ingredients to take away and cook at home. This helped to alleviate the financial burden on food insecure families over the weekend.

Alongside the boxes, we provided a series of fun and educational recipe videos, hosted by youth presenters Christina Adane and Edward Adonteng, to show families how to make the dishes and engage young people in cooking at home. There were whole host of delicious, healthy recipes including chilli non carne, chickpea and sweet potato curry, pasta pangrattato, chocolate and pear cake, plus many more!

But this programme was about so much more than just food.

As well as food, children, young people and their families/carers were invited to join an array of community activities either at their local holiday club or at home, including arts and crafts, food education, cooking, sports, theatre, ensuring plenty of opportunities to learn new skills, make new friends. One hub, Kingwood Estate, even took their young people to meet the local police horses!

One parent said: “Our children came home with a light in their eyes – brimming with unusual confidence having played and explored! That’s the adventure they have been needing these past few months and you are the ones who made it happen.”

We were thrilled to be able to support low-income families through this programme at a time when so many were struggling. A huge thank you to everyone who made it possible.

To find out more:

READ our Summer of Food and Fun impact report here.
WATCH our Summer of Food and Fun video here.