Leicestershire pub fundraising to provide breakfast for disadvantaged children
The Salmon pub in Leicester launched ‘Project Breakfast Club’ to support an existing breakfast club at the Lancaster Academy, which offers children supported by the Pupil Premium Fund a healthy meal, including fresh fruit.
Licensee of the Salmon, Alex Hylton, said: “The community has been really good to us over the last couple of years when pubs have had so many challenges.
“We were really humbled by how Leicester came together.
Giving back to the community
“Now we're back on our feet, we want to repay that support and pass it back to the community and do something we think is really important; putting a good breakfast inside hungry children.”
Lancaster Academy’s breakfast club currently runs from 8am to 8.30am Monday to Friday for children who may not otherwise receive a healthy breakfast.
Though the club has ran for around four years and has been part-subsidised and part-funded through the National Schools Breakfast Programme, the money raised by the Salmon enables the school to offer a wider variety of food as well as extend the club for the children, some of whom need to catch two buses across Leicester to get there.
Hylton added: “Pubs are part of the community, so it should play a role in improving it. That's why we wanted to do something this year and have a fundraising project, we want to have something we can rally around and do something good after all the bad news in the last couple of years, it's nice to do something positive and upbeat to find that silver lining in what has been a very big and very dark cloud.”
The Brekafast Club currently offers breakfast to one in three children at the school, but Hylton hopes through the pubs fundraising efforts, Project Breakfast Club will be able to extend the breakfasts to all children at Lancaster Academy and even include other schools.
Fundraising events, which have already raised almost £300 of the pubs £3,000 target this year, have included quiz nights, live music, and raffles, including a chance for customers to win a gallon of beer.
Pubs are there for people
Hylton said: “More so than ever pubs are there for people and public houses mean something different to everyone.
“For some people, it’s going somewhere you're going to get a conversation, someone's actually interested in you, pubs are a great remedy to loneliness or sadness; they're not magical places, but they do a lot more than just get people drunk.
“£5 pays for a pint and a bag of nuts, so if you want to donate a fiver, think of it as buying the Breakfast Club a pint added onto your round.”
For more information visit www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/projectbreakfastclub.
