Helping get ready for school…
The end of the summer holidays is always a busy time for families – and for us, it’s no different. A new school term means buying new school uniforms; an expensive prospect for most families, but especially for many of the families who we support with food parcels. To help alleviate some of this financial burden, we have been offering ‘back to school’ packs to those families in need. Although we can’t provide everything, we hope our packs go some way to covering the expense.
“Without the packs, I don’t know what I would have done about my bills. I might be able to pay them in September now.”
A boys’ pack (left) and girls’ pack (right).
Following the success of last year’s scheme, we have tried to ensure the packs have the maximum impact. After speaking to parents and teachers about what would be most helpful to include in the packs, we decided to add another two-pack of polo shirts, a choice of trousers or skirt, a swimming costume, and drawstring PE bag to the PE kit, polo shirts, underwear, socks, water bottle and stationery which comprised last years’ packs.
“It’s such a relief that my kids are going to school with new uniform and just looking and feeling the same as all the other kids.”
The packs go beyond addressing financial issues, too. The Children’s Society report, ‘The Wrong Blazer’, found that whether a child has the right uniform or not can have a significant impact on their wellbeing: ‘Wearing the wrong uniform can lead to children being bullied, feeling left out or even being excluded from school, through no fault of their own.’
We hope that the packs help get the children off to the best start possible for the new school year!
Along with users of our food bank and asylum seekers and refugees, we have also provided for some families referred to us by Social Services.
James Meek, one of the social workers who referred four families, said: ‘Any help at all we can offer our families has a huge impact on their emotional and financial wellbeing. In this case, providing uniforms has had a hugely positive impact. It was like Christmas in some cases, delivering the bags to the children. Most of the families I support have needed to rely on second hand clothes or ill fitting "hand me down items" so having new clothes is sadly a very exciting prospect.’
Our Project Assistant, Ruth, with some of the bags about to be handed out.
Another important part of the scheme was holding a collection ‘event’ for families to come and collect their pre-packed packs. Our Project Assistant, Ruth, who organized the scheme this year, said: ‘It was so great to be able to give the packs out in person and have a chat with people when they came to collect. The Olive Branch was founded on trying to understand and listen to the daily realities of what those we help are struggling with, so it was great to be able to sit, listen and chat to people over a hot drink and piece of cake – and to give the kids a chance to choose some colouring books and stationery! The packs were so gratefully received and really confirmed to us what a worthwhile project this is.’
We want to say a huge thank you to the staff at Lancaster Primark for their amazing demonstration of support for our scheme - when we contacted them to ask them to reserve the underwear and socks needed for us, we were amazed the next week when it was given to us, free of charge as a result of the staff choosing to chip in for it all!
Many thanks also to Morecambe Bay food bank, who sent us lots of new spare stationery and colouring books for us to offer, too.