Feast of Fun and other food provision over the summer holidays
Feast of Fun is a family focused project that equips churches to provide meals to children as part of wider activities and events. These could be a healthy cooked meal, packed lunch or outdoor picnic. The scheme has a practical outcome: providing food during the holidays for those in receipt of free school meals in termtime but also has social benefits: enabling families to enjoy participating in free and fun activities together in the holidays.
Many Feast of Fun activities are running over the summer holidays across our network. Some details of what’s happening are below.
Down in Plymouth, many churches are participating in Feast of Fun this summer. Meals & More has teamed up with Transforming Plymouth Together and One Devon to enable them to equip many churches and faith organisations to offer healthy meals to children, young people and families as part of school holiday events and activities throughout the city such as crafts, storytelling, dance and football. Read more about the programme at Feast of Fun - Transforming Plymouth Together. Other diverse community initiatives and activities are also running over summer across the area. More details of what’s on offer are available here: Church Summer Fun 2023 - Transforming Plymouth Together.
Up in Liverpool, Together Liverpool have grants funding made available in partnership with Meals and More for over 5000 meals across the diocese to be distributed at different fun activities run by churches and other community and faith organisations, plus 2 grants of £500 for the Big Days Out happening in the summer holiday, providing a trip out for 25 or so young people. This crucially helps tackle holiday hunger and reduce the risk of children and families going without meals but also as evidenced from feedback received during the running of the scheme at Easter, helped connect and strengthen relationships between churches and local families in their communities. Though church led, several Feast of Fun and Big Day Out activities run collaboratively alongside different community partners and are open to all, regardless of faith, ethnicity or background. Information on these grants can be found at Apply for a Feast of Fun or Big Day Out microgrant - Together Liverpool.
At Together Middlesbrough and Cleveland, Feast of Fun has run since 2014. Starting with 6 churches, there are now over 40 churches providing fun activities and healthy food for 11500 children, young people and their families each year. Read stories of the impact it’s made at Feast of Fun - Together Middlesbrough And Cleveland (togethermc.org.uk). The partnership is truly collaborative, involving community groups and schools alongside partners and funders, such as companies like Quorn Foods which supplies Quorn products and cooking experiences; Brake Meals & More; and the National Literacy Trust which supports reading and provides free books. Over 300 volunteers are involved in the project including those from the older generation, making A Feast of Fun across the generations - Together Middlesbrough And Cleveland (togethermc.org.uk).
Transforming Lives Together Chester run a similar programme to Feast of Fun called Filling the Gap. The scheme is run by churches in school holidays, delivering food and fun activities for children and families, enabling them to play and eat healthy food together. All are welcome but a special effort is made to include those families with children in receipt of free school meals. The Feeding Britain campaign reported on the detrimental effect of hunger on educational development with children in poorer areas seeing their spelling skills decline or stagnate over the summer holidays, meaning they took many weeks to catch up with their peers.
Far more than food provision, Filling the Gap provides a safe space for friendships to form between families, peer parental support to occur and quality time to be provided for parents/carers and children to take place. For more information on how to join the network or run an event, go to Filling the GAP - Transforming Lives Together (tltogether.org.uk).
Together for Change in Warwickshire and Coventry provide a host of activities to help tackle the real issue of food poverty and reduce holiday hunger. Link workers organise holiday clubs including free lunch for those children who receive free school meals, while the charity also financially supports churches and community groups organising local initiatives such as food pantries and Slow Cooker projects, which teach people how to cook healthy meals on a small budget. More details of what is on offer can be found at this link Food Poverty - Together For Change.
Imagine Norfolk Together offers similar initiatives, helping lower the current statistic of 1 in 5 parents/carers saying that they’ve missed a meal so that their children can eat, an issue intensified during school holidays. Take a look at some of their videos by volunteers with the SMILE project run by one of the local churches, Kingsgate Community Church, Great Yarmouth at Food Poverty - Imagine Norfolk Together.
Last but not least, Greater Together Manchester are pioneering their first social supermarket. It costs just £5 to sign up and £4 each time you shop. This gives you access to a whole variety of food options just like in a supermarket, allowing people choice of what they’d like to buy. The only criteria is to live 20 minutes from the venue. It is hoped more of these will be rolled out, helping tackle food waste, make food more affordable and support the local community. Go to Food Support | GTM (greatertogethermanchester.org) for more info.