Covid-19 recovery: food at the heart of our 2020 summer activities

Thanks to the continued funding from Cash for Kids, via their Radio Forth1 appeal, Big Hearts is running a host of activities during the summer with a strong emphasis on food as a pathway to wellbeing. 

This summer we know that food insecurities will become a reality for many more families in South West Edinburgh, and those relying on free school meal vouchers will continue to struggle until the schools are back on.

This summer, Big Hearts will help:
– Secure food provisions for households in crisis, via door to door deliveries when they are unable to purchase weekly essentials or to go out shopping.
– Promote healthy eating and active lifestyle, as a key component to successful learning and social development in young people.
– Encourage family connections through cooking and eating a meal together, creating fond memories that bring them closer.

Through our School’s Out! project we are delivering food parcels every week, and activity packs to keep the children engaged. We are delighted to be working with our foodbank partner the Community One Stop Shop to offer fresh vegs & fruits, dairy, meat and life-long shelf essentials.

Our Kinship Care Family Officers are engaging with families through weekly remote activities, including a cooking club where kinship teenagers and male carers are preparing a homemade ‘take away’ meal; and a Big Hearts bake-off where kinship young people can express their creative skills.

Big Hearts’ summer programme was set up in 2018 with the local primary schools, as a response to the growing issue of  ‘holiday hunger’ in the surrounding areas of Tynecastle Park. Our popular School’s Out! project engaged with 3 times more children than expected last year and provided over 800 free meals during the summer school break.