Iceland and The Bread and Butter Thing join forces to deliver free school meals across Greater Manchester and Darlington
Iceland donates 650 free school parcels through TBBT, equating to 18,000 meals for families who receive free school meal vouchers
Families will receive £40 worth fresh fruit and veg as well as cupboard items
Available at TBBT's hubs: St Monica's and Manchester Communications Academy in Manchester and Corporation Road and Harrowgate Primaries in Darlington
Supermarket giant Iceland has teamed up with TBBT to offer free school meals to families in need across Greater Manchester and Darlington. The funding will enable Iceland to support 650 families eligible for free school meals, to help ease the burden during the half term holiday. The donation equates to over 18,000 individual meals, providing a crucial lifeline for hundreds of families during the school holidays.
These special Free School Meals parcels will be available through four of TBBT's community hubs over the coming days: specifically, St Monica's and Manchester Communications Academy in Manchester and Corporation Road and Harrowgate Primaries in Darlington.
Each parcel will contain the equivalent of a standard weekly family pack from TBBT including fresh fruit and veg as well as cupboard staples, equating to £40 worth of food essentials.
Mark Game, CEO TBBT: "Making sure that low income parents can feed their families is what TBBT is all about and I'm delighted to be working with Richard Walker and the team at Iceland to provide this vital service. We know that 80% of our members have gone hungry in order to feed their kids and as the effects of COVID continue to bite, we know that more people than ever will need support this half term and on throughout the winter."
Iceland are already long-term supporters of TBBT. In the past twelve months, Iceland has donated the equivalent of 25,500 meals to TBBT to help families in need. A proud member of Marcus Rashford’s Child Food Poverty Taskforce, the supermarket is also offering a free £1 pack of frozen vegetables to any families using Healthy Start Vouchers or a Best Start Foods card in its stores until 31 December.
Richard Walker, Managing Director at Iceland said: “Iceland continues to support the call to end child food poverty and we are committed to finding ways to help families facing food insecurity. We are proud to be working with The Bread and Butter Thing this half term to provide essentials for those families most in need and will continue to explore ways to support the communities on the doorstep of our stores across the UK.”
Founded in 2016, TBBT now has over 12000 members across the North of England who benefit from its weekly affordable food service which takes good quality surplus food from supermarkets and manufacturers to create weekly bags of food available at heavily discounted prices.
Mum-of-four Nicola, and regular TBBT member said: “This is going to be an enormous help. The thing about The Bread and Butter Thing is that you are never made to feel that you are being judged – no one’s looking down their nose at you."
NB: Darlington: This is in addition to the free school meals support over the weekend in Darlington, funded by Sarah Weston's crowd-funder, local businesses and charities across the town.