Free meals and summer activities throughout August for Medway children
13:51, 06 August 2021
updated: 13:53, 06 August 2021
Two teachers are spending their holidays running free summer camps with free meals for vulnerable children across Medway.
Andrea and Jon Waite have joined a Medway Council scheme to keep youngsters active and provide them with healthy food.
It comes on the back of England footballer Marcus Rashford's successful campaign to provide free meals to needy youngsters.
The Holiday Activity and Food project (HAF), funded and launched this year by the Department for Education, is aimed at pupils who are entitled to free school lunches.
But other children can also enrol and get a discounted meal.
Jon, a cricket coach and PE teacher who runs his own sports and education consultancy Fuzion Active, has taken on the role with wife Andrea, a swimming teacher.
The couple are running the scheme throughout August at sites in Rainham, Walderslade and Rochester, employing 30 staff including teachers, sports coaches and trained holiday club staff.
They currently have about 100 children on the books, with each one getting a hot, nutritious meal.
They were given a budget by the council to run three out of nine sites, including catering, staff and compiling the programme.
Having wide experience of running holiday schools, they believe the project is more important than ever this year because of the months children spent being home-schooled during the pandemic.
Andrea, 39, a mum-of-two who works at King's School in Rochester, said: "It's not like school. We are not sitting them down and asking them to read a book.
"But there is an element of learning. We ask them to write down feedback of activities and workshops.
"It's more about physical engagement - there's not a screen in sight"
"It's more about physical engagement - there's not a screen in sight. They get a card to take home to say what activities they have done and what they thought of them."
They both gained their experience and training from a young age when they enrolled on a council-run school holidays scheme in the 1990s.
Andrea said: "It was pulled for financial reasons, but greatly missed. I was with it from 1998 to 2002, my last year of university and completed all my courses there."
Jon, 40, was a supervisor on the scheme and saw its demise left a gap. He subsequently started his own company providing activities.
He said: "We feel very strongly that children should benefit from HAF. It's a great shame if they don't."
The scheme is open to children aged between five to 15 in families in receipt of benefit-related free school meals.
To find out more and book a place, go to the MedwayGo website at go.medway.gov.uk/#
