Lunch Club Summer 2014
Since 2012 Kids Inspire has run a weekly “Kids Who Lunch Club”during the school holidays. The aim of the club is to feed those children who might miss out during the holidays, combined with arts/crafts, drama, music or dance sessions.
During one session, the children had fun playing parachute games with our fantastic volunteers.
Local children enjoyed hours of fun and healthy lunches at weekly summer holiday ‘Kids Who Lunch’ sessions
The Lunch Club was once again a huge success, providing more than 140 free activity places for many local children over the six week summer holidays.
Themes
Each week followed a different theme, including drama workshops, Strength ‘n’ Grow with Shimmy ‘n‘ Groove, storytelling and games, as well as arts and crafts, all of which kept the children entertained! The children enjoyed the club so much, many returned for sessions on following weeks.
Grant Funded and corporate support
A big thank you to Essex Community Foundation for awarding us the funding to continue to deliver this project. A special mention to all of our wonderful volunteers who assisted the children in their activities each week, including corporate sponsors, Capita, who allowed 16 of their staff members to spend a day out of their workplace volunteering with us. Without them all, the club would not have been the same!
Happy children
The feedback from the children, parents and our volunteers was overwhelmingly positive. Many of the children rated the club the maximum 10 stars and most of the volunteers have offered their time to support another club later in the academic year.
“The Lunch Club is fantastic, I always have a great time and like to make new friends and enjoy all of the activities” C (Aged 9).
“I tried grapes”
“I leant dance moves”
“Lunch Club helps me not to be bored”
“Helps me to be kind and share”
“Lunch club helps me control my anger – makes me be calm”
“Can we stay longer?”
“Everything was awesome”
Satisfied adults
“It’s great to see my child make new friends”
“Since joining the group my child’s confidence has grown and she has started to try new things”
“I’m so pleased that there is somewhere safe for my children to go in the holidays that is free”
“it would be great if it was on more than once a week.”
“I felt very welcomed and I loved the atmosphere at the club. I would highly recommend volunteering for Kids Inspire to other people, as it offered me such a great experience” Ruby (Volunteer).
Background
With no government provision for families and children on free school meals during the holiday times we realised there was a huge need to feed children a healthy meal free of charge.
Nearly a third of children are growing up in poverty-stricken families in some parts of mid-Essex, according to figures released in October 2014. The data from the End Child Poverty campaign, shows in the worst-hit areas the proportion of youngsters living below the poverty line, calculated as 60 per cent of the average income after housing costs, is as high as 29% in Chelmsford’s Marconi ward, 29% in Bocking South, and 28% in East Maldon.
With over 500 meals provided since we started children come to a 3 hour session where they take part in their first activity session followed by a snack of fresh fruit/cereal bar followed by their second session followed by a healthy lunch.
More information from admin@kidsinspire.org.uk