An initiative by Reydon Parish Council, the Sole Bay Care Fund and Latitude Volunteers

Reydon Parish Council has teamed up with the Sole Bay Care Fund and the Latitude Volunteers to launch a pilot project providing free school lunches for all children at Reydon and Southwold Primary Schools.

In recognition of the impact of the cost-of-living crises, the project will ensure children have access to a nutritious and balanced hot meal during the school day to support both physical and academic development. 

Councillor Pam Cyprien, Chair of Reydon Parish Council, said: “Following the success of our Community Pantry, we are delighted to be able to extend support to the children in our community through the Feed The Children intiative.  Both schemes are designed to benefit everyone, de-stigmatising those in need, and supporting everyone through these difficult times. No child should go without a nutritious meal, we want to thank all the volunteers who have got this project off the ground, and we look forward to making a positive difference to our community.”

Mrs Katy Last, Academy Head, Southwold Primary School, added: “Southwold Primary School is benefitting every day from this wonderful project, and with 95% of our pupils now having school meals each day, we know that the families are benefitting too. Financial pressure is always a concern and can be very stressful, particularly at this time of year and anything done to ease this makes a difference. A number of our school staff were Latitude volunteers, so directly helped fundraise for this brilliant project, and seeing the results of their efforts, and of all the volunteers and fundraisers, all those months ago is amazing.”

Dr Cathy Ryan MBE, Sole Bay Care Fund, commented: “The Sole Bay Care fund is delighted to be able to facilitate the donations for this project and want to say thank you to the other community groups, charitable trusts and individuals that have really got behind it. Knowing all children in our nursery and primary schools have access to a hot meal during the school day, through the winter months is an amazing achievement.”

The future of the project is reliant on continuous fundraising. You can donate to the project through www.solebaycarefund.uk or via bacs to Sole Bay Care Fund.  Sort Code 20-44-11.  Account Number 03084086.

For more information, please contact Lena O’Shea on lenaoshea@gmail.com or 07971910843.

The Reydon and Southwold Community Fridge and Pantry urgently needs drivers who can do local picks ups in Southwold in the evenings for delivery to Reydon, working with Tesco and the Co-op in Southwold to help us reduce food waste.

The task takes about half an hour (depending on where you live, but assuming you are local) and needs to be done at 8pm (when short-date food can be released).

We don’t mind if you can only commit to a few ad-hoc collections each month or a few collections a week. We collect every day. It’s all done on WhatsApp. Training (or buddying) can be provided.

If you can help, please get in touch with the Pantry team at reydonandsouthwoldpantry@gmail.com.