By Angela Green: The Caring Family Foundation’s ‘Food from the Heart’ Campaign upports Surrey Square Primary School to tackle child hunger
The Caring Family Foundation (TCFF) proudly partners with The Ivy Collection, Bill’s Restaurants, Caprice Holdings, and The Birley Clubs for this year’s ‘Food from the Heart’ campaign – working side-by-side with the hospitality businesses owned by Richard Caring to tackle child poverty and food insecurity during the Christmas holidays.
At Surrey Square Primary School, 25% of the children are living in Temporary Accommodation, and 85% belong to families facing significant economic challenges, as indicated by the lowest deprivation index. Additionally, 7% of these students have No Recourse to Public Funds, indicating that their families are ineligible for financial assistance from the government, including having access to social housing. Families and students have no alternative but to live in substandard or temporary accommodation, often located outside the area where they attend school, and lacking sufficient facilities to prepare a warm and nutritious meal.
Over recent years, The Caring Family Foundation has been working directly with Surrey Square Primary to address child hunger resulting from homelessness. This initiative involves supplying daily meals to children, recognising the link between poor accommodation and the pressing issue of hunger. This is a continuation of TCFF’s work with them distributing meals during the summer holidays in 2022, bringing singer Anne Marie who performed at their Summer Festival. The Ivy and Bill’s chefs have worked collaboratively with the school’s Head Chef to create a bespoke and nutritious food offering that the kids would love. TCFF is providing a hot meal after school to take home, which many would not usually have access to and in some cases would go hungry otherwise.
On Friday 8th December, TCFF will host a Winter Wonderland Experience, a compassionate initiative designed to provide the children at Surrey Square Primary with an opportunity to create a magical end to the year despite the challenges they may face at home. As well as TCFF, volunteers across The Ivy, Bills, Caprice and The Birley Clubs will come together to support the children at the school by providing delicious hot dinners and entertainment, including balloon making, face painting, performers, and a special VIP book reading alongside support from local notables from 11am – 3pm on the 8th of December.
On the day of the event, the effort will be tied-to a nationwide donation as The Ivy will additionally be donating the profits from their festive afternoon teas to the Food from the Heart campaign. Nine locations across the UK will participate including Edinburgh, Harrogate, Norwich, Cardiff, Richmond, Chelsea, Marlow, Cheltenham and Brighton. In 2024, TCFF will be piloting a new scheme across The Ivy and Bills sites to bring together local communities in impoverished areas by linking a restaurant to a school or children’s centre and provide meaningful support around food provision, nutrition, cooking & wider volunteering and fundraising efforts.
All are welcomed to take part and support children experiencing hunger this Christmas, via TCFF’s website or booking The Ivy’s Festive afternoon teas where proceeds will be donated to the FFTH campaign.
The Caring Family Foundation and Co-Founders Richard and Patricia Caring invite the media, partners, and the public to join their mission to create “a world free from hunger, harm, and hurt.”
Building on the success of their previous charitable efforts working with children and families in the UK and Brazil, TCFF has distributed an impressive 2 million meals to struggling families and children through their network of schools and partners across both countries. The goal is to reach 2.4 million delivered meals by the end of December.
In addition, Annabel’s, part of The Birley Clubs, has dedicated their annual holiday facade to the Food from the Heart campaign to raise awareness and funds. The Annabel’s hot air balloon serves as a symbol of hope and inspiration in a year where the world has faced many difficulties and hardships. Anything is possible when we come together we can rise above the difficult times and challenges ahead.
‘Caring at Christmas’ Grant
In response to the growing challenges faced by children and young people within low income households to afford essentials such as food, clothing and shelter, The Caring Family Foundation successfully launched the ‘Caring at Christmas’ grant for over 20 charities across more than 10 boroughs in London to cover the cost of the food provision offered to service users. The grant will deliver 100,000 meals this November and December. The charities selected currently support children and young people from a wide range of backgrounds including refugees, asylum seekers, unaccompanied minors, Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) children, young carers, looked-after children, children living with serious illnesses such as cancer, crohns and colitis.