Pub giving 100 free meals a day to children going hungry in summer holidays

Landlord sets up initiative amid warnings three million families are struggling to feed themselves out of term time

The Crown Inn, Keynsham (Google)

A pub is to give away 100 free meals to hungry children every day for the rest of summer, in an attempt to help poor families struggling through the six-week holidays.

The hot dinners will be cooked up and dished out at the Crown Inn in Keynsham, Somerset.

The initiative is aimed at helping families who receive free school meals during term time and find themselves struggling with the extra economic burden during the elongated break.

But all parents will be able to arrive with youngsters and get the free feed – “no questions asked”.

It is the idea of landlord David Yeomans who had his lightbulb moment while donating at a foodbank last month.

“We went to give them a load of food," he says. "And then we thought, ‘Well, we cook a load of food every day anyway, and we would be able to do meals really cheaply, because we are already set up for that’.”

The first meals were given out last week, and the initiative will run until the end of the holidays, The Bristol Post reports.

It came amid warnings that parents across the country are regularly going without food themselves in a bid to feed their children during the six-week break.

Up to three million families are experiencing “holiday hunger”, parliament’s work and pensions select committee has found.

Talking about his give-away at the Crown, Mr Yeomans added: “They get a free sandwich and then at the same time, we give them a free proper cooked meal that we’ve prepared that they can take home and reheat for tea later.

“It’s for all families who need an extra hand feeding the kids. You don’t need to buy anything and we won’t ask questions.”

He said that those who had already visited tended to be parents who were in work but had found themselves caught in the trap between low wages and zero-hour contracts.

“Some of the people that have come in you can see on their faces that they are uncomfortable, because it’s not a great situation to be in,” he said. “One woman came in and was almost in tears, and she said to me, ‘You don’t know how much help this is right now, thank you’.”