Wigan community hub running free lunches scheme

Sunshine House, in Scholes, is ensuring children are well fed with the support of generous residents.
Kitchen assistant Leanne Crompton and centre manager Liz Heaton with lunchesKitchen assistant Leanne Crompton and centre manager Liz Heaton with lunches
Kitchen assistant Leanne Crompton and centre manager Liz Heaton with lunches

The community centre is making up lunch bags for youngsters who are currently not at school which can be collected or delivered.

Keeping children fed at lunchtime has been a fraught topic in recent weeks, with social media outrage caused by pictures of shoddy food parcel deliveries being sent out to vulnerable families by large contractors.

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The team at the Wellington Street community hub says it is concerned that families may be feeling the financial pinch if everyone is at home all day during lockdown.

So far it has been distributing around 50 lunch packs a day and thanked kind-hearted Wiganers who have donated money and food following a social media post about the scheme.

That has enabled the lunchboxes to move from a one-off idea to something which can support families across Wigan on a longer-term basis.

Sunshine House chief officer Barbara Nettleton said: “It started when we had a couple of hamper donations over Christmas. We also had donations of money when the whole issue about children’s meals started.

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“We came up with the idea of lunchboxes and decided we could get about 200 out.

“At first we thought if people paid a small amount we could carry on doing it but I put a post on Facebook and it went mad. We had donations coming in and it was amazing.

“If you are working from home or you’ve been furloughed and you’ve got children you will be using more of everything: electricity, gas, food. It must be costing some people a fortune.

“It’s not about kids qualifying for free school meals, it’s about every child deserving to have a lunch box.”

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The Sunshine House scheme is open to anyone in any situation who feels they would benefit from a helping hand.

The lunches, which have items including sandwiches, biscuits and drinks in them, have so far supported families in Ince, Whelley, Hindley and Hindley Green.

There has also been interest from Lowton and Golborne and Barbara wants to bring enough people on board to make it worth doing a delivery run across the borough.

Some deliveries are being made but most of the boxes are picked up from Sunshine House.

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Anyone wanting a lunch bag has to ring to sign up for the scheme. Call 01942 820026 to find out more.

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