Sefton Council provide free school meal vouchers for over over 8000 families at Christmas

This Christmas Sefton Council will once again be providing meal and fuel vouchers over the holidays for more than 8,000 families who are most in need.

The Local Authority has already provided 8,171 vouchers to schools across the borough, which are then allocated to eligible families.

Further vouchers are expected to be given out in the coming weeks.

Vouchers will allow families to purchase much needed food produce for their tables, as well as fuel, during the two week Christmas half term.

More than £450,000 has been invested by Sefton Council into the scheme to help combat food and fuel poverty among communities within the borough.

As with the October half-term scheme, the vouchers will be valid to buy food in-store and online at local supermarkets.

It will not be possible to use the vouchers to buy alcohol, tobacco, lottery tickets, phone top ups or stamps.

Cllr Trish Hardy, Sefton Council’s Cabinet Member for Communities and Housing said:

“In October, Sefton Council funded meal vouchers for around 8,500 children as part of an initiative which receives widespread public support.

“We are determined to be able to provide an additional level of support and security that some families will need during the holidays and over the Christmas and New Year period.”

Cllr Hardy added:

“Thanks to the massive effort of our teams across Sefton Council, we estimate that we will be providing 8,900 vouchers in total for the Christmas period via local schools.

“We are only too aware of the significant difficulties some families are experiencing at the moment across all our communities and we know this scheme will provide direct and much-needed support to them over the Christmas break.”

Families across Sefton who do not currently receive free school meals but think they might be eligible can visit www.sefton.gov.uk/freeschoolmeals to find out whether they qualify and how to apply.

Additional support services, advice and help is also available via the brand new Sefton Support Hub via www.sefton.gov.uk/seftonsupporthub.