The free school meals debate has been a huge topic throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, affecting thousands of families across Greater Manchester.
It has highlighted the gap between vulnerable children who do not have a regular routine, school meal or pastoral care.
In January, it was revealed some school food parcels provided by Chartwells were inadequate and worth less than half of the contracted value of £30.
Chartwells apologised and said they would increase the quantity and quality of the food parcels they offer.
The national food voucher scheme was introduced which allows families to get £15 a week of supermarket vouchers per child rather than food parcels.
But what are organisations doing in the region to support families who still need more support?
A different type of foodbank
A vital charity helping families in need across Manchester is The Message Community Grocery, which provides pop-up grocery shops where families can buy an array of items for £3.
During the first lockdown in 2020 national award-winning The Message Trust, based in Sharston, delivered 60,000 meals to homes across Wythenshawe.
They opened their first monthly grocery shop in Wythenshawe in September 2020 as a response to the ongoing pandemic and have reached 1300 households since then.
People are asked to pay a £5 annual fee to become a member of the Message Community Grocery, which allows them to visit the pop-up shop twice a week and choose over 20 items for £3, such as five portions of fruit and veg, two frozen items and two non-food products.
They also arrange delivery for people who are shielding and cannot visit the shop, which is open five days a week.
By the end of this year, the charity will have six more groceries in Salford, Wigan, Bolton, Sheffield, Hexham and Stockton-On-Tees.
Head of The Message Enterprise Centre, Sam Hawthorne, told us: “We have seen over 88,000 meals prepared from over individual 8000 individual shops since we first opened.
“This has also had an impact on our environment as these shops have meant over 115 tonnes of surplus food was saved from landfill.
“By the end of the year, we are looking to provide support to over 10,000 families every week who would otherwise struggle to feed their families.”
Support at schools
Although not all children have been going to school full-time, schools have remained open throughout the pandemic for those who really need it.
Schools, teachers and support staff have been instrumental in organising help for their pupils using outside organisations, such as Magic Breakfast.
They provide breakfast items such as cereal, porridge, juice and bagels to children both in and out of school throughout the pandemic in England and Scotland and currently help 64 schools in Greater Manchester.
This is a huge increase since last year as they were supporting around 23 schools in the region before January 2021.
The charity has adapted their usual breakfast clubs and classroom breakfasts during the pandemic and now offer parcels that can be taken home to children not attending school.
The breakfast packs have five bagels and a box of cereal which is handed out fortnightly, either through parents picking them up from the school or home deliveries.
Some schools have partnered up with Amazon and use their delivery services to reach the families that can’t collect the parcels.
Sue Griggs, Regional North Manager and School Partner said: “As a charity, our aim is to ensure that no child in our partner schools is too hungry to learn.
“Our belief is that a hungry child can’t concentrate. If you have not had breakfast and you turn up to school and are hungry you could miss out on half a day’s work of lessons.
“Our main remit is that any child who needs breakfast can access it without barrier or stigma.”
Often the morning lessons are key subjects, such as maths and English, so the charity believes it is very important that children have breakfast at the start of the day.
Magic Breakfast pride themselves on their flexible approach which allows schools to provide breakfast to children in a convenient way, whether that is during a breakfast club or a takeaway parcel.
Alysa Remtualla, Head of Policy and Campaigns at Magic Breakfast, told MM: “Overnight during the pandemic we had to innovate and figure out how to get breakfasts to children at home.
“One thing to really highlight is that for the first time ever we will now be delivering to children over the summer too.
“We’ll be offering free school breakfast at home, which will include low-sugar cereal, bagels and porridge for two weeks.
Magic Breakfast will be using Amazon Prime Delivery to deliver the food parcels over the summer, which includes delivering to children from 43 schools in Greater Manchester this year.
Community spirit
Foodbanks such as one in Wythenshawe provide lots of support for the local community and have provided over 3800 parcels since April last year.
They rely on donations from people in the community and volunteers to help distribute the food.
Wythenshawe Foodbank alone have handed out over 30 tonnes of food in the past ten months and many of these include the local children that are classed as vulnerable.
Wythenshawe Foodbank Trustee Tony said: “All over the country, more and more people are experiencing hardship and food crises during these difficult and challenging times.
“As we all face these difficult times together, the generosity and kindness from the local community and businesses have been overwhelming.”
Another charity that helps families in Manchester is Caritas, an international charity that provides emergency humanitarian assistance and development projects across the world.
Across the Salford Diocese, from Didsbury to Clitheroe, Caritas has been providing vital help to children and families both in and out of schools.
It works across 13 local authorities in 45 schools providing school social services once or twice a week to those who are identified by their headteachers as vulnerable.
Caritas’ services have changed since the pandemic and staff are replacing regular home visits to the vulnerable with valuable doorstop chats and walk and talks.
They also have two foodbanks in Collyhurst and Bury which give food parcels out to anyone in the local area.
The Collyhurst foodbank has seen a 22% increase in people using the service and they have delivered over 260 emergency food parcels since the pandemic began.
Rachel Taylor, Income Developments and Relationships Manager at Caritas, said: “What we have found is that we are being approached by people we haven’t seen before and more and more families who haven’t been in this situation before.
“Often when you have to apply for credits of any kind it’s awful and can be really dehumanising. We are collaborating with other services such as Manchester Foodbank to help deliver meals and services to families and the homeless in Greater Manchester.”
Thanks to generous donations and supported by volunteers and PCSO’s from GMP in Bury, our team at Red Door provided food…
Posted by Caritas Diocese of Salford on Monday, 21 December 2020
Caritas Salford was given a grant of £30,000 in 2020 by the Albert Gubay Charitable Foundation which allowed them to offer food vouchers to any families that were in need, identified by headteachers across the area, not just those classed as vulnerable by the government.
The charity wanted to offer food vouchers to families with no caveats or questions asked, said Georgina Jones, Service Manager for Caritas Schools’ Service.
“Our focus is around people who are experience poverty and disadvantage, making sure we alleviate hardship and protect the vulnerable,” Ms Jones told us.
“Schools have been very much out there doing a sterling job making sure their children are fed, which isn’t their primary job.
“There are some children who wouldn’t be classed as vulnerable according to the list, but we were able to identify others who were due to the pandemic and get them the help they needed. We want to say how brilliant our staff team and teachers are.”
You can find out more about these charities here:
