Home-Start Greenwich
“The food is always really good quality. We get a really good mix, the main things we get are lots of fresh fruit and vegetables, which is so important for the families. The cooked meals also go down well because a lot of families don't have cooking facilities, they might have a microwave and that's it.”
Home-Start Greenwich provides wrap-around support for pregnant women and parents with young children across the Borough of Greenwich. At the Brookhill Children’s Centre in Woolwich, as well as providing the core services like befriending and stay and play sessions, they also provide a food service for parents and offer a free community meal on a Friday. To do this Home-Start relies on deliveries from The Felix Project.
Michaela Bryant, Home-Start Community and Partnership Team Administrator explains: “On a Friday we give out food bags to all our families, that’s at least 30. Many of those are from our Together for Twos programme, they are the parents who are on low incomes, so this food makes a real difference. We give food at the afternoon stay and play session, so their kids can come and play and then the mums and dads take home food for the weekend. It’s great because we know by getting this, it often means they don’t have to spend their last five pounds at Tesco’s on the way home. That’s also why we have it on a Friday, because it’s a bit of extra support that is getting them through the weekend.”
Home-Start Greenwich receive their weekly delivery of around 185kg of food from The Felix Project South London depot. Michaela explains: “The food is always really good quality. We get a really good mix, the main things we get are lots of fresh fruit and vegetables, which is so important for the families. But there’s more, we get bread, milk, meat and ready meals and we get Felix meals. The cooked meals go down really well because a lot of families don’t have cooking facilities, they might have a microwave and that’s it. We had one family, we were giving them food and she kept saying no I can’t take this, and I can’t take that, and so we asked why. She said she had no kitchen, so she didn’t want to be wasteful and take foods that she couldn’t cook, she could not boil the vegetables or rice. So now she takes the ready meals, which are ideal.”
The meals and the food bags are now a vital part of the service Home-Start Greenwich provides. Micheala says “The food we give is making a difference, not only is it saving people money, but it also brings people out of their houses. Isolation and loneliness are a big problem for parents – so even just coming to collect the food means they are leaving the house and have a chance to interact with us. We can offer them food and then that may encourage them to try one of our other services – it can act as a catalyst. It really does make a big difference!”