Hastings charity helps over 200 children during half-term with food parcel service

Education Futures Trust (EFT) has been able to help even more children and families in need thanks to support from Hastings Borough Council, reports HOT’s Vanessa Alves.

When they heard that free school meals were going to be discontinued over half-term week, Cllrs Warren Davies and Mike Turner approached Hastings Borough Council (HBC) with the idea of authorising money to provide food for children over the holiday period. Thankfully, the council agreed to support their idea.

Education Futures Trust has been preparing and delivering food boxes since March to families in Hastings and St Leonards. They were able to extend their service over half-term to families who receive free school meals. In addition to the 94 children the charity already supports with regular food parcels, they were able to give a further 107 children meals during the half-term week. In total, 336 individuals received food during this week thanks to the EFT’s food hamper scheme.

Of those who received the hampers, 80% of the children lived in the 30% most deprived areas and 64% in the 10% most deprived areas.

The councillors passed on their thanks to: “Everyone at EFT for the valuable work that it does helping some of the most deprived young people to progress their education and rebuild their lives, in an environment which is a real community. The Trust has played a particularly valuable role during the Covid lockdown, providing and delivering food to vulnerable residents across our borough.

“Today we would like to express our sincere thanks to the Trust for its commitment to provide food during school recess periods for our young people, some of whom, as we know, would otherwise go hungry.”

Community’s generosity “amazes”

Carole Dixon, Education Futures Trust’s chief executive, commented, “EFT was pleased to have the opportunity to offer additional support to local families over the holiday period. I would like to thank staff and volunteers for their hard work and the positive approach that has enabled us to provide this service. We have been amazed by the community’s generosity, and it is moving to see how people are pulling together during this difficult time.

“The donations of food, funding and time have allowed the charity to meet the needs of local families at a time of unprecedented hardship. Thank you again to all involved and to the borough council for their support.”

EFT said that offering this half-term service just wouldn’t have been possible without the Trust’s volunteers. People seeing a post on social media asking for additional help offered up their time and were put straight to work preparing the hampers and delivering them where collection wasn’t possible. Two volunteers were even teachers who sacrificed their own half-term holiday to help. When asked what prompted them to volunteer, they gave the following comments:

“I’ve been there, I’ve been that low-income family, raising children on my own. I just couldn’t have managed at the time without support.”

“People are hungry – we have time!”

“We want to be part of the solution, not the problem.”

“My wife, children and I wanted to help the community out, as we didn’t want to see anybody going hungry – this had to be done!”

To find out more about Education Futures Trust click on the link here. 

To donate and make sure that EFT’s food parcel service can keep going please click on the link here. 

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