Colleagues from our Wrexham store presented a cheque for £1,000 so a church could offer children access to regular food during the school holidays.
The grant provided by the Asda Foundation was part of our Healthy Holiday Fund, which has been helping more children stay healthy, well fed and active during the holidays
The money was used by St Marks Church to operate a scheme on Caia Park during the summer holidays, one of ten Church in Wales projects in the Diocese of St Asaph helping ensure that children could access food when free school meals were unavailable.
Local churches and community organisations came together with local play schemes and youth clubs on Caia Park to make and distribute over 350 packed lunches from St Mark's each week during the summer holidays.
Sarah Wheat, the engaging officer for the Diocese of St Asaph, said: “More and more churches across the diocese are gathering teams of volunteers together to make sandwiches and provide healthy meals to help ensure children get the nutrition they need to stay healthy and play happily.
“Following recent news that foodbanks across the region are running low on stocks and some are expecting to run out of food over the summer holidays, ensuring that our children are fed properly is vital.”
Mary Williams, the community champion at our Wrexham store, presented the cheque to the church.
She said: “We’re delighted to support St Mark's Church through the new Healthy Holiday Fund.
“We understand that families can find it difficult to entertain children over the holidays and sometimes find the increased cost of catering for their children a challenge, so we hope that our Healthy Holiday Fund, by enabling local charities to hold more children’s events, eased some of the pressure."