Meet the Yorkshire business owners helping feed children on free school meals

Food businesses that have played a key role in ensuring the most vulnerable in their communities have not gone hungry during the pandemic have called the hampers provided to some children on free school meals an embarrassment and believe the Government could have tapped into local resources to provide provisions.
Community role: David Stanley, who runs the Beaumont Arms in Kirkheaton, has provided 7,000 hot meals for families in the village.Community role: David Stanley, who runs the Beaumont Arms in Kirkheaton, has provided 7,000 hot meals for families in the village.
Community role: David Stanley, who runs the Beaumont Arms in Kirkheaton, has provided 7,000 hot meals for families in the village.

Publican David Stanley started providing 10 to 15 meals to children on free school meals when the first lockdown was introduced in addition to ferrying food to vulnerable people in Kirkheaton. In total, he has provided 7,000 hot meals to families in the village.

Mr Stanley, who took over the Beaumont Arms in 2016, says the Government should sort its act out over the free school meals fiasco.

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Speaking to The Yorkshire Post, he said: “Worldwide, I think there’s too much greed. People need to step back and start thinking about others.

Ben Franco, owner of The Barn restaurant in Almondbury, says he wanted to help because the village has been good to him.Ben Franco, owner of The Barn restaurant in Almondbury, says he wanted to help because the village has been good to him.
Ben Franco, owner of The Barn restaurant in Almondbury, says he wanted to help because the village has been good to him.

“I’ve had my first child as I turned 50 and it’s just changed my world. It made me realise that I wouldn’t want to see her going hungry. She’s out in the snow at the minute with me and I wouldn’t want anyone else’s kids to suffer.”

Further down the road from him in neighbouring Almondbury, Ben Franco has also been helping the local community. He runs a little restaurant called The Barn, which he opened in 2016. Mr Franco had a lot of food left over just as the country was being plunged into the first lockdown and started giving it away to those in need within the community.

Mr Franco is very fond of the village having links with it since his childhood and also had a business there over the past two decades.

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He, like Mr Stanley, was shocked at the pictures that were circulating last week of the threadbare hampers.

Mr Stanley took over the Beaumont Arms in 2016.Mr Stanley took over the Beaumont Arms in 2016.
Mr Stanley took over the Beaumont Arms in 2016.

“To say that I have been in this trade for 35 years, it’s an absolute embarrassment that someone would put something like that together and think that would be excusable,” Mr Franco added. “It was an absolute disgrace.”

Both of them believe that the Government could tap into community support to ensure children don’t go hungry.

It’s a sentiment that is shared over in Leeds by Sat Mann, the founder of Lean Lunch.

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The online food delivery business teamed up with a charity to provide 350 Christmas dinners to pupils at schools in deprived areas of the city.

Mr Franco has been dropping off meals at the local church for people in need.Mr Franco has been dropping off meals at the local church for people in need.
Mr Franco has been dropping off meals at the local church for people in need.

“How many food professionals are there in this country who are idle?” he asked. “You give that decision to people that know about food and it’s a completely different outcome.”

‘Families struggling regardless’

Local school Netherhall Learning Campus approached Mr Stanley for support after seeing the work he was doing for the wider community. The school acquires vouchers for its pupils but sometimes even those aren’t enough.

Sam Diskin, safeguarding lead at Netherhall Learning Campus, says the school plays a role in ensuring children and families are looked after even when the school is closed.

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“We still have families that are still struggling regardless of the meal vouchers,” she says after delivering meals and food parcels to families in and around the school.

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