Cambridgeshire food charity ready for summer surge in demand
It's expected families will need support over the school holidays
A charity that provides hot meals to people in Cambridgeshire is preparing for a surge in demand from families this summer.
It comes as new figures from Tesco found in past school holidays, 37% of parents have been worried about the extra cost of feeding their children.
While one in 12 children have had to miss meals due to the financial pressures they bring, a problem that is eased for families that receive free school meals during term time.
"Services like ours need to keep up with the times"
George Broughton helped set up Feed Fenland, which supports people in Wisbech and March.
"What services like ours need to be able to do is be adaptable, keep up with demand and keep up with the times," he said.
"There has been a growing demand and for services like ours, there is going to be a strain over the next few months but we've got fantastic support from the community, good strategies in place, lots of good volunteers so I think we'll be fine."
What are the figures?
Almost half of families saying their children will miss out on clubs and activities during the summer holidays because of the cost.
Last summer, Trussell Trust food banks supported 430,000 people with emergency food – 160,000 of whom were children.
In May, the Trust reported in the East of England, there was a 30,000 increase in the number of parcels distributed over the last two years, from over 320,000 in 2022-23 to nearly 350,000 in 2023-24.
"I'm hoping our service will be less needed"
Since starting to serve people in Wisbech in 2022, Feed Fenland saw demand rise last summer with a 50% increase in service users.
George believes the cost of living situation for low-income families must improve.
"I guess more recently, it's got a lot worse because we had Covid and events in politics around that time, and incomes aren't keeping up," he added.
"Inflation is back under control more; that doesn't mean things are getting better but they're getting worse less quickly and I think that's a massive issue for Fenland.
"I like to think over the next few years, conditions will improve for people, how that's going to happen is not always easy to see but I'm hoping things will start easing off and our service will be less needed."