Our Responsibility To Feed Our Children – #Clearaplate campaign

As a parent, the one thing you take most for granted is feeding your child.  It is our responsibility to provide sustenance for our children, so they can grow and thrive.

So when you learn that last year over 330,000 children were provided with three days emergency food it is both shocking and heartbreaking.

My daughter is very picky and often refuses the food we offer.  She has the luxury of being offered alternatives, but each day food that she has refused is thrown in the bin.

There are so many stories of children with very little to eat, like little Tia who I read about on the Trussell Trust website.  Tia was 18 months old, when her young parents fell on hard times.  Her parents had to borrow a tin of soup from their next door neighbours to stop Tia going to bed hungry.  The family were then helped by a local food bank.  How does that make you feel?  Me? I got a big knot in my stomach when I read her story.  I cannot imagine not having enough to put food in my daughter’s mouth.  I don’t think any parent should experience those feelings.

Unilever have joined forces with Oxfam and their partners, the Trussell Trust and Fareshare, to launch Project Sunlight to tackle food poverty in the UK.

Part of this project is #ClearAPlate.  As a country we waste 11,500 tonnes of food every day, when 1 in 5 families will be struggling to feed themselves.  The #ClearAPlate initiative has already donated two million meals.

Ways you can help

• Raise Awareness of food poverty in the UK by tweeting/Instragraming your cleared plate with the #ClearAPlate
• Text PLATE to 70066 to donate £5 to help Oxfam’s work in the UK.
• Donate via the Oxfam Website.
• Get involved in fundraising for Oxfam.
• Reduce food waste, by accurate portioning.

These figures may surprise you

You could also donate to a food bank

These are the items most desired by food banks.

• Milk (UHT or powdered)
• Sugar
• Fruit juice (carton)
• Soup
• Pasta sauces
• Sponge pudding (tinned)
• Tomatoes (tinned)
• Cereals
• Rice pudding (tinned)
• Tea Bags/instant coffee
• Instant mash potato
• Rice/pasta
• Tinned meat/fish
• Tinned fruit
• Jam
• Biscuits or snack bars

It is worth bearing in mind that some people receiving this food may not have a fridge or a tin opener, so powdered/UHT milk and ring pulls on the cans are appreciated.

So if you can, please help. Text, tweet, donate, raise money, drop off some food at your local drop off point, but do something to make food poverty in the UK a thing of the past.

This post is part of the Mumsnet call to action to highlight the work of this project.