Just under 25 per cent of South Holland’s children are living in poverty, according to a campaign group.
Coalition pressure group End Child Poverty’s January 2018 report states that after housing costs, 4,320 children in South Holland are classed as in poverty, which is 23.97 per cent.
Before housing costs, 2,729 children are classed as living in poverty.
The group defines poverty using this measure: “Households are living in poverty if their household income (adjusted to account for household size) is less than 60 per cent of the average.”
According to the data, Spalding has the highest population of children in poverty, with numbers in the town’s six wards adding up to 1,241 children (after housing costs).
Long Sutton has 325 and Crowland has 241. Both towns have satellite sites for the Agape Care food bank, which is based in Spalding’s Lighthouse Church at Haverfield Road.
Darren Fawcett, Agape Care’s assistant coordinator, said this Christmas the majority of food parcels he prepared were for families.
“We did just shy of 600 food parcels last year and most of that went to families, so two adults, one child or one adult, two children.
“At Christmas I did 83 food hampers and most of those were for families with children.”
To avoid bias, Agape only gives hampers to people referred from outside organisations.
“We rely on referrals at Christmas, so organisations select people they’ve been working with throughout the year that they deem would benefit from a Christmas hamper. 90 per cent of the food hampers I sent out I put in Christmas toys and selection boxes for children.”
Referrals come from the likes of Women’s Aid, The Chapel Centre and adult social care.
Darren said it’s not just an issue for the organisation’s Spalding base. “I had a lot of referrals from Long Sutton, I had to transport about 25-30 food hampers over there.”
Darren said he sees common reasons for referral. “The three reasons are debt, low income or benefit delay.
“There’s no quick for fix them, unfortunately,” he said.
Agape Care classes itself as an emergency service and limits the number of food parcels available to three per person per year.
It is open Tuesday afternoons and offers a free meal on Thursdays and run by volunteers.
