Summer Holidays 2021
Good Food Barnsley, with the support of Feeding Britain, were able to continue to support with Healthy Holidays (or Healthy Activities and Food/HAF) provision this Summer through generous funding provided by Brakes, Meals and More. We’re really proud to support in the delivery of holiday activities for children and families out of term time, and it was fantastic to see the work being achieved across our network of partners and affiliates this Summer.
Barnsley Metropolitan Borough Council ran the Summer HAF programme, funded through the Department for Education (DfE), which sought to support children and families who are eligible for Free School Meals. The Brakes funding was used to support children outside of the DfE stipulated criteria, and meant that a further 129 children and 56 adults were able to access activities and support over the Summer across 5 different providers. As a result of this additional funding one of the providers, Barnsley Gymnastics Club, were also able to source match funding from within their organization, resulting in an additional 5 children benefitting from their Summer clubs.
Upon his visit to one of our community groups, Ad Astra, located at New Lodge, Peter McGrath, who runs the Brakes, Meals and More programme, noted “the Ad Astra team’s emphasis is on support of each child and the family. Engagement with the young people is based on a mix of physical activity, an opportunity to talk and have someone listen, sports, creative activities and food. On a typical day the young people would be involved in art, literacy, food preparation and outdoor games. It was clear that all that attended loved being there, especially the team who delivered the support.”
Healthy Holiday activity is something that Good Food Barnsley has been involved with since 2017, when we took accountability for the local network group of Feeding Britain, Feeding Barnsley. Community groups have been creating engaging and fun activities for children and families in Barnsley for years, and the impact that these groups has can’t be underestimated.
