Tackling local food poverty
We teamed up with Fusion Maidstone (healthy living centre) and the Life Café in Park Wood, Maidstone to offer a free lunch pack to anyone struggling to feed their family over the half-term holiday.
The lunch packs were available to collect from the Fusion café to anyone who receives free school meals during term time and might be struggling over the holiday period. Golding Homes is also offering anyone unable to get to Park Wood, who is eligible for free school meals a food voucher which covers the cost of free school meals for a week.
Interim Chief Executive, Sue Chalkley, said: “We are pleased to be able to play our part in tackling local food poverty by working with our partners at Fusion Maidstone to help people who are struggling at this time. These free lunch packs and vouchers will go some way to stopping children going hungry over the holiday period.”
Chief Officer at Fusion Maidstone, Tracey Elmore, said: “In these challenging times we are delighted to work with Golding Homes to support vulnerable families in our community by offering them a free school meal via the Life Cafe during the holiday period. Please come in and talk to our friendly staff about our full range of services to support your physical and mental health.”
As a local landlord Golding Homes supports several charities in Kent and Maidstone, providing funding in recent months to Fareshare family foodbank, Salvation Army and other local projects via its community chest fund.
“We understand these are tough times for people, with the pandemic having a devastating impact,” explains Sue. “We will be talking to our partners about what else can be done to help people in Kent as we want to do what we can to support agencies that are working to tackle child food poverty.”
Sarah, Community Development Advisor at Golding Homes, said “We shouldn’t have any family in our community struggling to feed their children and need to work together to ensure there are no empty bellies during school holidays. The reality is many families rely on the free school meals during term time to ensure their child has a hot meal at least once a day and the financial impact on all families to feed their children during holidays is inevitable.”
To register for the scheme this half term please contact our community Development team on com.dev@goldinghomes.org.uk or call Golding Homes on 0300 777 2600.
The Fusion Healthy Living Centre is located at 2-3 Cobb Way, Off Livingstone Walk in Park Wood. For more information on their health and wellbeing services please contact Tracey or Sue on 01622 691177.