FISH (Food in School Holidays)

Gusto employee Phil Grundy presented his £500 donation to FiSH (Food in School Holidays).

FiSH Project (Food in School Holidays) is a project run in the local communities of Welton and Dunholme. The FiSH Project provides vouchers to families struggling to put food on the table for their children during the school holidays. The vouchers can be exchanged for suitable food and toiletries at local participating shops and supermarkets. Welton Larder is another project which provides emergency food parcels for local people struggling to feed themselves. It has also produced recipe cards along with all the ingredients needed for a range of healthy meals for families presenting FiSH vouchers.

Statistics indicate that 8% of children in our community experience some form of multiple deprivation. These children who typically, but not exclusively, receive free school meals during term times, may go hungry during holiday periods as families have additional mouths to feed. In addition, many families experience additional financial pressures, whether due to issues with benefits, delayed or reduced wages, domestic violence, sickness, family breakups, debt, homelessness, redundancy, unexpected bills, family tragedies, as well as issues relating to Covid-19. The FiSH vouchers are redeemed weekly by our volunteers.

The numbers used is agreed with the shop managers and we pay the shops. The larder is part of the wider Lincoln Larder group but runs mostly independently. Each week we ask members of our churches to supply additional food items as we run short. Occasionally we have additional costs such as shelving and publicity. But each week we find ourselves feeding local families and individuals, people who would otherwise struggle. We believe no child or family in our community should go hungry and seek to provide for the most needy and vulnerable through our actions. Clearly to continue to run our projects we have to raise the funds to pay for the vouchers, and other occasional costs too. Unfortunately. due to Covid-19 all our planned fund-raising activities have been cancelled, so your support would be amazing