Frome school pupils receive takeaway breakfasts from charity

Tim Dodd,BBC West of England, Bristol

Fair Frome Handbags from Fair Frome Frome Fair

Around 50 children accessed Fair Frome breakfast bags on Monday

Somerset pupils are being offered free takeaway breakfast bags from a local charity after some schools said their pupils were arriving hungry.

Fair Frome, which said it works to improve social equality, distributed the Frome Cricket Club bags every Monday during term time to pupils at Frome College and Selwood School, where there is no cricket club. breakfast.

The charity said the cost of living crisis continued to impact families, alongside increasing pressures on working parents and their morning time.

Sixth form pupils at Frome College and those in years 5 to 8 at Selwood Academy could collect the bags containing fruit, protein bars, juices and pastries for half an hour from 8am.

Fair Frome Breakfast BagFrome Fair

Pouches contain fruits, protein bars, juices and pastries

Vegan and gluten-free options were available, and the service will currently run until the summer holidays, when the charity said it would like to continue if it could secure enough funding and volunteers.

About 50 children collected the bags on Monday, “no questions asked, everyone is welcome,” said Lenka Grimes, Fair Frome’s senior coordinator.

“It is important that children feel that it is accessible to everyone, and that they do not have to prove that they benefit from free school meals and that there is no stigma,” she said. she declared.

“Some children simply don’t have time to eat in the morning.

“We were also concerned that children were eating chocolate and soft drinks from the shops on the way to school, so there is a health element to that as well.”

“Uniforms sold for food”

Fair Frome said it identified a need for the service through conversations with the families and children it supported, as well as other agencies.

Frome College told the council of the “huge impact of the cost of living crisis on families”, with students often arriving at school without breakfast and relying on cereal bars provided by the college.

Selwood Academy told the charity that with exams coming up the school was finding many pupils were not eating out of worry, but by using handbags with their peers pupils were more likely to eat.

Free school meal allowances could not be used during recess, he said, so children had to wait until lunchtime before they could eat, affecting their learning.

Family support charity Purple Elephant said some Frome College students had arrived without breakfast and without essentials such as a pencil case and even a uniform which was sometimes sold to buy food.

“This lack of a morning meal negatively affects their (students’) ability to concentrate and learn throughout the school day, impacting on their life chances and mental health,” said Sue Willis, responsible for the service.

Fair Frome Foodbank Frome Fair

The charity’s food bank is open 3 days a week and supports members of the community in Frome and the surrounding BA11 area.

The cost of living crisis has deepened in Frome, Ms Grimes said, with housing and rental prices rising due to the popularity of the area.

“Since January we’ve seen a real drop in donations to our food bank, with the people who would normally donate – the middle layer – no longer being able to afford it,” she said.

Since the start of the year, the association’s donations had fallen by 30% from one month to the next.

The charity’s food bank is open three days a week and supports members of the community in Frome and the surrounding BA11 area by providing emergency food parcels.

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