Families provided with healthy food hampers during February half term

Blackburn with Darwen Council, in partnership with the Thomas Franks Foundation and Westholme School, and supported by Community Business Partners, have delivered over 250 ‘Winter Food Boxes’ during February half term.

The food parcels enabled local families to cook a healthy, substantial meal for four, as well as enough food for the week.

Each parcel contained a mix of fresh fruit and veg as well as tinned and dry ingredients. They also included nutritious recipe suggestions for families to cook from ingredients within the box.

The hampers were made up by members of the Thomas Franks team, senior members of staff at Westholme School, and key worker children during their lunch breaks.

Alongside the recipe cards, Westholme’s Catering Manager, James Pate, created videos – which were available through an online portal to all families.

With the support from Blackburn with Darwen Council’s adult learning team, James also held a live cooking session, allowing families to watch and cook along to at the same time.

Last year the three partners provided 27,000 free, fresh meals to local charities and the most vulnerable in the local community.

Blackburn with Darwen Food Resilience Alliance has helped Blackburn with Darwen Help Hub collect, pack, and deliver food and supplies to the most vulnerable in the borough during the pandemic.

Alliance Chairperson, Councillor Jackie Floyd, said:

It is more important than ever to have nutritious, healthy food during the colder winter months, and even more important to help people keep healthy during the current pandemic.

We would like to thank the Thomas Franks Foundation and Westholme School for all their help and for being a member of the Food Resilience Alliance network.

The network of members aims to share knowledge to help people provide, grow and cook healthy food to improve the health and wellbeing of the borough’s residents across our diverse community.”

The winter box scheme has been funded as part of the Covid Winter Support Scheme and is an extension of the Family Winter Food Box programme which will continue to be delivered by Community Business Partners through until the Easter Holidays.

Frank Bothwell, Founder of Thomas Franks Ltd, said:

This is a fantastic initiative that we are proud to work on with Westholme School and Blackburn with Darwen Council to help the local community.”

Vivienne Davenport, Commercial Director at Westholme School, said it has been a pleasure to be involved in the scheme.

Providing a nutritious food box is a small act which hopefully has taken away one half-term problem. We value our role within the community immensely and kindness has never mattered more.”