Local sports & education charity inspire+ is offering a new programme to support children get more active and ensure they receive a nutritious meal during the school holidays. The Bluecoat School in Stamford have hosted the first ‘Move and Food’ provision and undeterred with not being able to secure a venue in Grantham inspire+ staff are delivering hot meals to children’s homes, setting children daily activity challenges to complete at home with their family.
The programme, named by the charity as ‘Move and Food’ is supporting to combat issues that some children face since the Coronavirus outbreak. Children’s physical activity levels declined sharply during the summer lockdown with research from Sport England suggesting that only 19% of children were accessing the daily recommended physical activity levels of one hour a day, 7% were getting no physical activity at all.
Youth Sport Trust also have highlighted that young people’s mental health has deteriorated as a result of restrictions imposed by Covid with at least one third of children experiencing an increase in mental health issues including stress, loneliness and worry and the charity believes that getting children participating in fun physical activities will help address some of these issues.
Feeding children in the holidays has certainly been highlighted in the media and Move and Food is also ensuring that the children receive a hot nutritious meal each day.
Vincent Brittain, CEO and Founder of inspire+ says ‘We have wanted to introduce the Move and Food programme for a while and the Coronavirus pandemic has increased its relevance and need. We have been fortunate that we have managed to secure funding from multiple sources to ensure this can be offered free of charge. This includes a Tackling Inequalities grant accessed through Active Lincolnshire, and donations from the Grantham Lodge of Freemasons and Cllr Lee Steptoe in Grantham. The hot nutritious meals have been kindly provided by Totemic. Our pledge is that we will provide Move and Food throughout every school holiday even when the pandemic we currently face subsides’.
