Blog
It’s a crisis
05th October 2022
Urgent Cost of Living Crisis Appeal: Give children and families a warm welcome this winter
Children are facing a desperate crisis this winter, as families simply cannot afford to live. Here's Dr. Elaine Storkey on the heart-breaking impact the cost of living crisis is having on children.
"Hello, I’m Elaine Storkey, I’m an academic so I give lectures and write books and broadcasts.
I want us to think about the question: how does the cost of living impact on children in low income families?
The way families usually organise their finances is split in two halves. There’s the money that’s spent on necessities, absolute essentials in order to stay alive, and then there’s the money spent on things people would like to have to make life more enjoyable.
Now, higher income families can usually afford the second, low income families only the first. So when there’s a cost of living crisis, and costs spiral out of control, then people who have more money cut back on the things that they would like to have but now can’t afford. People in low income families cut back on essentials.
And the impact of that on children is absolutely enormous. It means some children don’t have enough to eat. I actually know school teachers who take fruit and milk to school to children who they know have had no breakfast because parents just didn’t have the money to put breakfast on the table.
So they don’t have enough to eat and their concentration at school is very poor, which has an educational negative effect. But also it’s the sense of not feeling the same as everybody else, they know other people afford other things, that other children are different. So it completely eats into self-esteem. And then there’s sleep. And then there’s just general wellbeing. All the traumas that the parents are facing because of low income, because of not having the funds to sustain life properly, actually impact on the children too. So there’s a crisis there.
I’m very grateful, as an Advisory Member of Transforming Lives for Good, we’re looking at that crisis and seeing what we need to do about it."
TLG's URGENT CRISIS RESPONSE
Over the last few years we’ve partnered with hundreds of churches across the UK to run Make Lunch clubs, offering children and families hot food, fun activities and lasting friendship in the warm surroundings of their local church family.
With 40% of families on Universal Credit skipping meals, one in five unable to cook and two-thirds having to spend their first cost-of-living payment on food just to survive, there’s never been a time where Make Lunch has been more relevant than now.
It’s not ok that families are forced to choose between cooking dinner and putting the heating on. That’s why we’re equipping churches to make a difference this winter to hungry and cold children in communities across the UK. Make Lunch is a great way to meet urgent practical needs AND build lasting relationship with families in communities that need urgent HOPE.
So we want you to join us on this mission. If you’re passionate about providing a warm welcome to struggling children and families this winter, then we’re asking for donations to our urgent Cost of Living Appeal. Will you give today to bring hope in the middle of this crisis?
