Over the half term break, St Mary’s Church in Sholing has opened its doors to struggling families, through its ‘Make Lunch’ initiative, offering free, hot and healthy meals, as well as fun activities.
St Mary’s teamed up with Christian organisation ‘Transforming Lives for Good’ to set up the ‘Make Lunch’ club, which feeds families who usually receive free school meals during term time. Families are referred by the four local schools in the parish; the schools signpost all the families who they consider to be vulnerable to food and social insecurity during the holiday periods. All the adults and siblings from each household are welcome to come and enjoy the meal too.
“If the kids are hungry then you can be certain the adults are too, because they will always feed their kids first,” said Su Brakewell, a licensed lay minister who runs the club with a team of volunteers from the church.
Su explained that they began to see the need while running ‘Messy Church’ sessions during school holidays: “We noticed that some children fell on the food activities every time and would just stay there. When we did some digging we found out that we have a greater than average proportion of families on free school meals in our community. So we contacted Transforming Lives for Good, and managed to scrape together some funding, and it has grown over the years and become its own community.”
This half term, the menu has been sponsored by the local Waitrose and has included sausage casserole, homemade burgers and salad, bacon and broccoli pasta bake and apple crumble. The recipes chosen are always healthy and are able to be made in one pot on the hob – “as lots of families don’t want to turn their ovens on because it’s too expensive,” said Su. The church was also given a grant to buy electric pans which are quicker and cheaper to use.
“We start the day with a time to socialise” she continued, “Toast is always on offer for any hungry arrivals. Then we prepare, cook and eat lunch together.”
The activities have also been great fun this half term – including a Lego masterclass and a music workshop provided by the Rocksteady Foundation, a charity which organises free sessions for young people, allowing some of the most vulnerable in society to enjoy the wellbeing, fun and educational benefits of playing music in a band. The parents were treated to a performance at the end of the session – a rendition of ‘A Sky Full of Stars’ by Coldplay with the children playing all sorts of instruments.
To see the joy on the parents’ and kids’ faces is wonderful. It’s what I call ‘organised chaos’ but it’s great fun. It’s all about the children – their health and wellbeing and giving them opportunities to do activities and eat things they never normally would. One of the children even tried a green bean this week!
This is far from the first time that St Mary’s Sholing has engaged so proactively with the needs of its local community. This is the fourth year running they have offered ‘Make Lunch’ club and, during periods of the national lockdown, volunteers from the church delivered over 100 meals a day to struggling families. “We are aware of the pockets of very serious need and deprivation in our parish,” said Su. “God keeps showing us where we can make a difference – we just need more people to help with the harvest! We are so thankful to all the people who have given us grants and continue to pray for us. And to local primary school (Valentine Primary) who let us use the premises free!”
