Liverpool families face food poverty ahead of summer holidays
A play scheme in Liverpool is making special arrangements to send each child home with a hot meal Monday-Friday in the six week break.
With just days to go before schools across Merseyside break up for the summer holidays, a Liverpool community centre says it's been overwhelmed with demand for its services, amidst a cost of living crisis.
Despite more than trebling the capacity of its play scheme this year, bosses at the Liverpool 6 Community Centre say they're physically unable to cater for all the families reaching out for support.
Compared to the usual 30 places available, this year the centre will accommodate up to 100 children on every week-day of the school holidays, which has been made possible by Whitefield Primary School offering out its buildings.
For the first time, the organisation is also making special arrangements to send a hot meal home with each child in the play scheme, to help alleviate financial pressures that are facing families with rising food prices.
"It will help families a lot if mums and dads know their child is going to be bringing a meal home to feed the family. The child will also have helped to cook the meal themselves, which I think is even better."
Gerard Woodhouse is the CEO of Liverpool 6, he continued: "The parents we speak to each night at the youth centre are worried. They've got six weeks ahead of them where they've got to feed the children and it's all extra money they have to find.
"There's only so much we can do. Those living in London in their ivory towers are telling us things are getting better. Come and show us at the L6 how they're getting better; because I can tell you they're getting worse.
"We're still not getting to every family. The phone hasn’t stopped ringing with parents wanting to register their children for the play scheme, but there's now a waiting list. We will still support those families with food parcels each week."
The L6 play scheme will run Monday-Friday each week of the school holidays between 10am-3pm. Children will be provided with a breakfast, lunch and a meal to take home at night.
You can find out details of the support available from L6 here.
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