Helping local families during the summer holidays | Our News

We are proud to have provided more than 9,200 nutritious meals to local children where we are based during the summer, as part of the Holiday Activities & Food (HAF) Programme. 🍽️

The government-funded HAF Programme plays a vital role in supporting children and families during school holidays.

It is in place to ensure children eligible for benefit-related free school meals have access to nutritious food during the Easter, summer and Christmas holidays.

And it aims to create opportunities for young people to enjoy engaging and enriching activities, make new friends, learn new skills and stay active in safe and inclusive environments.

This summer, working with the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham, we have been busy supplying meals to 23 locations across Barking and Dagenham. We also supported sites in Redbridge and Thurrock.

Based at our LondonEast site in Dagenham, our catering team have also worked with 14 commissioned organisations to deliver activities across the borough.

These included:

-Arts & crafts
-Drama & music
-Cricket & golf
-Swimming
-Kayaking
-Food and nutrition workshops for children and parents

The HAF programme, which is led locally by the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham, continues to make a real difference for children throughout the school holidays.

We first partnered on the scheme with the council in 2021 and in the past five years have provided more than 120,000 hot meals, 170,000 snacks and 1,000 breakfasts throughout Barking and Dagenham during the school holidays, targeting areas most in need.