Together Network – Delivering Emergency Food in Chester
Transforming Lives Together Chester is working with local churches to support vulnerable families and homeless people.
Transforming Lives Together – Chester is working local churches to distribute food to vulnerable people, including an initiative to feed children and their families during the school holidays. Provision consisted of hot meals as well as bags of food. Prior to Covid-19 they were supporting 11 churches to provide holiday food and activities to children and families, this increased to 20 during the pandemic. 14 churches who regularly deliver food in the summer, saw a huge increase in demand, never seen before.
Other churches around Chester were working together providing hot meals for homeless people who had been taken off the streets because of the pandemic and rehoused in accommodation without cooking facilities.
In total TLT supported a network of churches providing 1,204 bags of food and 3,635 hot meals for 1,833 individuals. Nearly 200 volunteers were successfully recruited to help as many people as possible.
One of the recipients of the lunch packs sent this feedback:
“I was a very grateful recipient of the 2 lunch packs (every day) for my two boys (who attend St. Vincent's) over the lockdown period this year. The packs were brilliant, sandwiches delicious and lots of lovely treats. Very spoilt indeed and my boys (7 & 5) LOVED getting them each day. It was something they really looked forward to so it helped immensely with the daily grind of homeschooling and it was one less job that I had to worry about.
Lunch packs then miraculously turned into food boxes which again, were fantastic. Such a generous portion of useful bits and pieces that got our family sorted for food each week. My husband had a major salary cut (due to COVID) so receiving these lovely lunch boxes eased the amount of money needing to be spent on groceries each week.
On behalf of my family and myself, i wanted to say a very BIG thank you for being so generous, not only with the food items in the boxes but also with your time and effort in organising it all. You've supported so many families over this difficult time and we're enormously grateful”.