Leicester City in the Community Serve 840 Free Meals To Local Schoolchildren

- Leicester City in the Community have provided Leicester schoolchildren free meals and healthy lifestyle learning this summer
- Eat Well Play Better is a programme LCitC partner with FareShare East Midlands and Central England Co-operative
- FareShare provide daily fresh food deliveries, while Co-op provide interactive workshops to the participants
- Filbert Fox was there to hand out food to the participants

Leicester City in the Community’s Eat Well Play Better programme, ran in partnership with Central England Co-operative and FareShare East Midlands, aims to support families over the summer to provide healthy lunches, whereby they would receive free school meals during term time.

The programme, which will engage 640 children from ARH Primary, has taken place across four days, over a four-week period, which goes alongside guidelines of The Department for Education for running this type of provision.

Jamie Skinner, Education Manager at LCitC, explained how the programme has helped teach the Avebury Avenue School children how to live a healthy lifestyle.

“The Co-operative have given up their time to deliver a healthy choices workshop,” he said.

“It provides information on how the children can make positive choices around the decisions they make when it comes to eating.”

“They can take this to their mums, dads or guardians to promote healthy eating back at home.”

FareShare East Midlands deliver high-quality and fresh food, every day, to allow LCitC staff to make meals for participants.

Meanwhile, a Central England Co-op representative gives an insightfully interactive short course on food awareness, of which Karen Bevan, Member and Communities Relationship Officer delivers.

Karen believes the interactivity, and the addition of Filbert Fox, has had a greater impact on the young people on the programme.

“I have had Filbert Fox today, which was fantastic!” she said. “What our workshop does is look at what counts as part of your five a day.

“We have a quiz and we look at food labelling and how to understand it.”

To enable an active and healthy lifestyle, the young people are given plenty of time, around eating, to exercise and demonstrate the value of keeping active to support a healthy lifestyle.

For more on the Eat Well Play Better programme, please email Jamie Skinner on jamie.skinner@lcfc.co.uk.