A community focused café in Fox Valley Sheffield is offering free breakfast clubs for children and families in the summer holidays.
Their scheme began last summer to help parents who might be struggling during the long school break, at first the numbers were slow but now the club has up to 30 children in attendance.
James Pretty, the assistant manager said that during the holidays parents have “more food to buy and less time to work to buy the food.”
He said: “It’s important to have options. For me it’s about the free breakfast and the kids eating and also about feeling normal.”
Mr Pretty wants the breakfast club to feel like a normal meal at a café rather than something you have to use because you’re struggling.
The café is run by a company called Lounges, they have 260 sites across the country and majority of the sites host the free breakfast clubs.
There is the Falco Lounge in Barnsley and Vetro in Barnsley.
All of the food purchased at the club is paid for by Mr Pretty and other staff at Zorro’s. He said: “It doesn’t take a lot for us to do but it means a lot. Some families really struggle.”
The government has put in place free breakfast clubs for state funded schools. The schools will receive funding from the government to cover the cost of the food and staffing.
The scheme is intended to help children from struggling families start their day right to improve attendance and academic performance. So far it has reached 750 schools but the plan is for it to be a national scheme.
However, the scheme only runs during term time, which means during half term the children will go without. Mr Pretty said this is a government issue as parents struggle more in the summer.
This is what Zorro lounge and other Lounge cafes across the country are trying to tackle. Mr Pretty believes free breakfast clubs should be seen as normal for these families and should be available everywhere.