After 3 weeks in lockdown I've been really struggling to know what to do with myself everyday, then I read this quote by Lillian Braun

And I thought to myself "What could I do for someone else?". The answer was easy, do what I do best, and that's cook!! There must be a whole bunch of people who need a decent meal during the Corona lockdown right? So I started to do a little research....here's what I found.

Recent data published by Unicef shows one in five youngsters under 15 in the UK now live in a food insecure home. A recent study of food poverty in the UK found that the families of nearly 4 million children would struggle to afford enough fruit, vegetables and other healthy foods to meet the government’s nutritional guidelines.

In London the situation is even worse with 44% of children living in low-income households and nearly 10% of them (the equivalent of 74,000 children across London) said that they sometimes or often go to bed hungry.

Almost 1.3 million children, about 15% of those in England's state schools, receive free school meals because they come from low income families. For many of these kids the free lunch they receive at school is their main source of nutrition and often their own proper meal of the day.

The data shows the need is greatest in parts of London, especially in Tower Hamlets (where I live) with more than double the national average of families claiming free school meals for their children.

With UK schools closed many of our children are facing hunger and malnutrition on a daily basis. Some schools are providing a lunch pick up service which is only being partially used, the many who can't provide that service offer £3 per day per child in food vouchers. Last time I checked it's almost impossible to buy a decent lunch for just £3, especially in central London!!

So I've teamed up with one of my besties, the fantastic Deanna Smith, founder of https://www.platterandslate.com with the aim to feed at least 100 of these kids every day for the next three weeks, or until the schools reopen.

Billingsgate Seafood School http://www.seafoodtraining.org have generously allowed us to use their kitchen facilities so we're able to maintain strict hygiene standards and physical distancing for our volunteers.

Jean-Paul Chia, another bestie, and high flying management consultant, is keeping us all organised as kitchen manager and volunteer co-ordinator for which we are extremely grateful!!

The food will be mostly vegetarian, sometimes vegan, kid friendly, super tasty and fun to eat. A healthy "happy-meal" moment for these kids who are often at risk, in unsafe home environments and going hungry on a daily basis.

100% of your donation will go towards the food costs and any little toys or sweets we might include to brighten their day. We are budgeting a cost of £3.50 per meal for 100 kids for the next 21 days which is how we arrived at our target of £7350. If the cost per meal is lower then we will be able to make even more lunches. If we exceed our target the more kids we feed and the longer we can continue the service. If we don't meet our target we will use whatever we raise and feed as many as we can.

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