Annual poverty statistics revealed 31% of children in the UK are living in poverty. 1.7 million children went hungry because their family could not afford enough food. These statistics are for the year leading up to the pandemic. It's forecasted that the reality now is much worse. This should not be happening in 2021. At St Luke's, throughout the last year we have provided food hampers for 40 - 50 families. In 2021, thanks to some additional funding we were able to provide cooking packs for families on top of their regular food hamper.

The cooking packs included all the ingredients and the resources to make 2 - 3 recipes out of a choice of 5. We've received such positive feedback from families, how parents confidence in cooking has increased, children are trying new foods as they learn more about them. Here's some of the feedback from our previous cooking packs:

"I don't know how I would have survived without the food hampers, because I wouldn't have been able to feed my child without it, his father lost his job during Covid which has meant all child maintenance payments have stopped abruptly ever since. The food packs were great and the recipe instructions were very clear and useful. We made the pasta bake and the chocolate swirls. The hampers have been amazing because it always consist of the essential items of things I would normally buy."

"The food hamper and the cooking packs have been great the kids look forward to the packs to see what new recipes we can learn and do together"

"The kids really enjoyed making the twists and tuna pasta bake. Our eldest children 14 and 9 made it by themselves and had the pasta bake for dinner."