A community in Forfar says tackling social deprivation is best done by pulling together and finding local solutions to society’s mounting problems.
The success of this simple formula is seen in its outcomes: children fed during holidays dressed in affordable, second-hand clothing, smiling and engaged in activities with new found friends.
Parents, some of them raising families alone, are finding respite and a boost to their mental health and well-being from others through the project, named the Free Breakfast Club.
Food is distributed by a network of volunteers provided with donations from local food stores and bakeries.
Church project helping hundreds
The focus for these solutions is Lowson Memorial Church in Forfar, a suburban kirk designed just before the First World War.
Such is the reputation of the locally-drive social program that First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon attended the free breakfast club on Thursday morning.
Dawn Rennie, senior practitioner for parental and family engagement at Angus Council, explained the beginning of the project.
She said: “In 2018, I was given a document from the poverty and inequality commission and that really highlighted holiday hunger. This was about children at school getting a meal during term time and in the holiday there was no additional income for our families.
“I saw that as a real barrier for some of children and families, it was almost effectively a benefit cut.”
Future hopes
With the bleak statistics on winter energy bills, Ms Rennie hopes the project will continue: “I hope we will be able to maintain this program. The need for it in our community is huge. It’s supporting local business, it’s supporting employability, supporting volunteering opportunities.”
It is run by volunteers with funding from Angus Council and the Scottish Government.
A network of 70 business and voluntary organisations across Angus also contribute to the project while fundraising initiatives pull in extra cash to keep it running.
On her visit, Ms Sturgeon played with many of the youngsters at the church and spoke with those that deliver what she described as a hugely valuable service.
She also discussed the cost of living concerns many of the families who use the facility have.
‘No them and us anymore. It’s just us!’
Reverend Dr Karen Fenwick, minister at Lowson Memorial Church, explained the origins of the current social outreach are now six years old.
She said: “We started a food project back in 2016. By 2018 we realised we needed to do more. We got a phone call in June 2021 (during a Covid-19 lockdown) asking could we run our free breakfasts again. My response was, ‘I’d love to’ but we had a massive restriction on what we could use church buildings for – we could only use them for worship and I kind of joked ‘If I had a marquee…’
“That’s when I was made aware of council funding. We bought marquees and we started to run free breakfasts outside.
“Fast forward a year, we can still run our holiday club for children inside, but we can have breakfast club outside. At a time when we’re all struggling – none of us have an extra £200-400 to pay for extra bills – we’re all going to have to just muck in together, there’s no them and us any more, it’s all just us!”
Leanne Prophet, a mother of five children shared her family’s experience: “There was a den here, donated by Aldi. It was make your own den. It was like £3 and my kids have used it all summer; inside and out. They’ve hardly had their phones in their hands.”
Conversation