News

Albion As One donation to Chomp will help feed local families

The latest Albion As One donation will help feed 70 families for the next two months.

By Richard Morris • 29 May 2020

With the Albion As One fund having raised more than £310,000 since it was launched by the club’s Premier League squad, donations are now beginning to make a real difference to local people. 

The latest donation has gone to the Chomp Project, an initiative set-up to help tackle holiday hunger often experiencing by children who receiving free school meals.

Families are usually provided with free hot meals and free activities for children to enjoy during school holidays and here in Brighton and Hove, the Chomp Project often links up with Albion in the Community to provide sessions showing families how to prepare healthy food on a budget. 

But after the introduction of lockdown and the wider Covid-19 precautions, the Chomp Project quickly redesigned its service to provide immediate support to local families struggling to buy food.

Each week volunteers now deliver 70 Chomp boxes – food parcels containing fresh fruit, vegetables, groceries, toiletries, and treats – to local families who have been referred by schools, social workers, GP surgeries, and food banks. Children are also given activity packs to help keep them entertained while at home. 

In the first eight weeks of its new approach, the Chomp Project provided support to 173 families, including almost 400 young children.

The donation from the Albion As One fund will now pay for 70 local families to receive Chomp boxes and activity packs once a week for the next two months.

Any money left over will then help pay towards a Chomp Project initiative to provide job training to 100 unemployed parents and older teenagers, with the goal of helping them find work and provide additional financial support to their families.

Vanessa O’Shea is the project lead for the Chomp Project in Brighton and Hove and was grateful for the support provided by Albion As One.

She said, “The generous donation to the Chomp Project will enable us to support families who are struggling to put food on the table by providing nutritious food parcels during the Covid-19 crisis and when things get back to normal, hot meals for children during school holidays. 

“From all the Chomp team - thank you.”

 The Chomp Project has produced a short video about the support they are providing during the Covid-19 crisis. You can watch it here