Schoolchildren set up food aid to help 20 struggling families

A group of students from Rotherhithe are helping to feed more people in need after setting up a special food aid service.

With support from food charity The Felix Project, students from state school Bacon’s College, in Timber Pond Road, launched the new scheme just before Christmas, and are already supporting about 20 families each week.

The Felix Project, London’s largest food redistribution charity, delivers roughly 150kg of surplus food to the college every Monday.

Consisting of mainly fruit, vegetables and other healthy produce, the food is then made up into parcels which families are invited to collect from the college reception.

Bacon’s College head boy, sixth-form student Finn Ashworth, plays a key role in organising the student volunteers to make up the food parcels. He said: “Students at Bacon’s are encouraged to show compassion in our daily lives through acts of charity and fundraising, so redistributing surplus food to families that would benefit from extra help with rising food costs is a great way of living our college values and helping those in need.”

The student council at Bacon’s have a fundraising and charity committee whose role is to develop whole-College initiatives.

Joel Whittlesea is on the committee: “As a committee we wanted to come up with ways to support our local community all year round in addition to our annual Advent and Harvest Appeals. The donations from The Felix Project enable us to do just that.”

The initiative came about after Director of Sixth Form, Jacob Foley, invited The Felix Project into the college to explain about what they do. They said: “We know many of our parents are struggling with the high cost of living and I wanted to show the students there was something that could be done to help.

“I’m really impressed with the way that students have embraced this opportunity to get involved in volunteering.”

Alice Handelman-Pedroza, schools and young people lead at The Felix Project, said: “We support a lot of schools and youth groups across London. What was so great about this project was that so many of the students were keen to help, around a 30 of the 120 students signed up, it was very moving.”

Pictured top: Year 9 student Shekinah Pinkrong, left, with Year 7 student Elisabeth Alltimes, right (Picture: Bacon’s College)