10,000 families to be given supermarket vouchers to help feed youngsters during Easter break

Food vouchers of £30 will be issued for each eligible child to cover the two week break – roughly the same amount it costs to provide children with a free meal in school.

The council’s cabinet is set to approve the funding for the scheme at its meeting on March 22.

Councillor Gordon Watson, deputy leader of the council and cabinet member for children’s services and neighbourhood working, said: “We know that some families in Rotherham are really struggling to make ends meet, something which the Covid pandemic has exacerbated further.

“Inspired by Marcus Rashford’s campaign to end food poverty in this country, the Council stepped in last October to provide food vouchers to local children during the school holidays when the Government announced that it wasn’t continuing with the support it had previously provided.

“Although the Government has now u-turned on its original position and is providing funding for food for children during school holidays, we need to keep the pressure on to ensure these are permanent arrangements and the Council recently adopted a motion which calls for the right to food to be incorporated into the national food strategy – enshrining in law that nobody in this country should go hungry.”

During a meeting of the council’s overview and scrutiny management board on March 17, Leader of the council, councillor Chris Read said: “Late last year we were received something like a million pounds from the government in grants for what we called winter support, which we’ve used to fund vouchers to the value of school meals for eligible children through the Christmas holidays, and to February half term, as well as some support for people with paying bills for utility costs, for Christmas meals, support through voluntary action Rotherham and help for funding with school uniforms.

“As a result of that, [around] 10,000 children across the borough received additional support with free school meals at Christmas and February half term, and 9000 children, some of whom will be the same but not all of them, received financial support of up to £25 pounds towards school uniform costs.

Cllr Read added that the authority has received another £35,000 from the government’s support grants, and proposed that the money be used to give families with children on free school meals supermarket vouchers, to be distributed via schools.

Councillors praised the initiative, with Councillor Jeanette Mallinder adding that she was “proud” that the authority had “identified basic needs” and helped youngsters.

“We could have been looking at a lost generation”, she added.

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