We're helping out to provide Free School Meals over half-term

With the devastating news that extending free school meals for the October half-term and Christmas holidays has been rejected by Parliament, we really wanted to do something to help. And it seems we’re not the only ones. 

Our little corner of the UK has always pulled together in times of trouble, now more than ever,  and there are so many businesses stepping forward to offer to help with free school meals – even at such a challenging time for the hospitality sector. It makes us proud to be from the North East. 

We wanted to share a little about what we’re doing to help and how you can access this support, as well as promoting the fantastic independent businesses going above and beyond to help alleviate the problem for thousands of families in the region. 

Evolved Search and Crust Social are offering free pizza kits 

In the past, we’ve set ourselves the goal of helping out charities – and this couldn’t be more important in the current climate. Thankfully, we are based in a region where people will jump at the chance to support worthy causes, and the guys at Crust Social Tynemouth are no different.

We’ve partnered with Crust Social Tynemouth to pull together fantastic pizza kits, with a huge range of healthy toppings, to be delivered to children throughout the October half term.

We’re donating £1000 as a business to fund the kits, with Crust Social also donating time, resources and packaging to make this happen. 

Additionally, several members of the Evolved Search team have volunteered as drivers to deliver these meals to families who are in need during the week. 

Sinead Hall, Head of People at Evolved Search, said: “Funded breakfast clubs, free milk and fruit, free school lunches and after school homework clubs with free snacks are often taken for granted and at a time where support to each other is paramount, it’s really upsetting to see the Government have voted down the motion of free school meals during half term and as a result, aren’t helping families in need at this crucial time. 

As a team of working-class people, it hits hard when you hear that families in your local area are unsure on how they will get their next meal. Children should not have to go hungry, full stop.

We feel a big responsibility to help out wherever we can and have been ramping up our support to local charities during the pandemic – and will continue to do so.”

Lyndsay Morrison, co-owner of Crust Social said: “After hearing the Government had cut free school meals during the holidays, we really wanted to get on board and help. When we were contacted by Sinead from Evolved, we knew we needed to get involved in supporting families from our local community, because being a new, small, family business, that sense of community is hugely important to us.”

How to access pizza kits and other support:

If you’re reading this and need support to access food for your children over the holidays, please get in touch via our Facebook page and we can arrange delivery of pizza kits to your home. Please provide your delivery address in your message.

There are also kits available for collection and these can be collected from Crust Social Tynemouth, Land of Green Ginger, Front Street, NE30 4BP, between 11am – 1pm daily throughout the half-term holiday.

We are also actively contacting and trying to work with local councils and schools to schedule drop-offs of the kits, so that parents can access these easily on pick-up and drop-off. 

We’ll keep this post updated with detail on where you can collect, if and when these collection sites are organised. 

The Chronicle also has a list of support facilities which you can access here.

Are you a business offering free meals?

If you are a business offering support and want help spreading the message, we can help with that. 

Shop On The Tyne was created by Evolved’s employees that were furloughed during the pandemic, and is a local directory of local, small businesses offering goods and services that are beneficial to the local community.

If you are a food outlet that is offering support for children who will be affected by the lack of free school meals, tag the Twitter profile in your tweet with the hashtag #ENDCHILDFOODPOVERTY to be featured. 

You can also read more here on the fantastic companies that are offering huge support to families in the area that are in need. We also just want to say, thank you to the people in the North East – you’ve done us all proud! 

If you are interested in seeing what some of our team have done in the past, you can read more on our marathon walks and even tree planting. 

We send our best to everyone battling through this endless hurdle – you’re doing great.