4Com support ‘Healthy Holidays’ at the Bournemouth Foodbank

This summer we are supporting the Bournemouth Foodbank and their ‘Healthy Holidays’ lunch project. The 4Com Foundation is donating £1066 to cover the cost of every lunch over the six-week school holiday period, benefiting 46 families in the local community.

The Bournemouth Foodbank is part of The Trussell Trust’s network of 428 UK foodbanks whose aim is to end hunger and poverty in the UK’s local communities. The Foodbank Network was founded in 2004, four years after developing the original foodbank in Salisbury. During the past year alone, over 1.6 million three-day emergency food parcels were given to those in crisis. Over half a million of those went to children.

Many children rely on food they receive at school during term time, meaning school holidays can be extremely difficult and additional support is desperately needed. The ‘Healthy Holidays’ lunch project in Bournemouth will support 46 families, including 87 children, over the school summer holidays. These struggling families have been identified as in need by local schools or church groups.

The cost of each lunch is £1.27 per day, totalling £1066 for 6 weeks. Julia from the Bournemouth Foodbank explained how they came to this figure:

 “By using supermarket websites, we’ve managed to look up the relevant items and collate the most cost-effective. By choosing the cheapest items and dividing the individual packets of the multipacks, the result was a very reasonable figure where many items are 10p each.”

The foodbank is hoping to provide the following items in their ‘Healthy Holidays’ lunches:

  • Sandwiches
  • Fruit
  • Salad items
  • Yoghurts

Parents will collect a weeks’ worth of lunches from the foodbank in Boscombe to prepare themselves, saving them a daily trip. Each family will also receive a food parcel containing three days’ worth of healthy, balanced meals and non-perishable food. Typically, a food parcel includes:

  • Breakfast cereals
  • Soup
  • Pasta and rice
  • Pasta sauce
  • Tinned beans / meat / vegetables / fruit
  • Tea / coffee
  • Sugar
  • Biscuits

With donations so low at this time of year, the Bournemouth Foodbank is having to source supplies from other foodbanks. However, they can only provide select items for the food parcels and nothing for the ‘Healthy Holidays’ lunches. Without our donation, a very limited amount of food would have been available for the children’s lunches throughout the school holidays.

In addition to our monetary donation, the 4Com Foundation are also providing some family tickets to Paulton’s Park and the cinema. School holidays can be a difficult time for all members of the family if funds are limited, so we hope these tickets will provide some much-needed entertainment and fun for everyone.  

Back in May we held a cake sale in aid of Cash for Kids’ Superhero Day, raising £110 for ‘holiday hunger’ projects in the South. The schemes ensure children from disadvantaged backgrounds receive meals during the summer holidays, as well as learning how to cook healthy food, highlighting just how important this topic is.  

Don’t forget you can also donate food to the Bournemouth Foodbank at several locations. Keep an eye on the ‘Urgently Needed’ section which is updated monthly.

To find out more about how the Bournemouth Foodbank are helping local people in crisis, visit their website.