Taylor Rose Team Leader helps local community!

Fri 30 October 2020 Taylor Rose Team Leader helps local community!

Sarah Howard, Team Leader of the New Business team in Peterborough has been helping struggling families this half term by creating food parcels.

Sarah has been working for Taylor Rose for over 2 years. She is a mother to 6 and a Nana to an amazing 6-month old little boy.

Sarah had the idea of putting up a status on her local community Facebook page regarding setting up food parcels to help struggling families during the half- term.

The free school meal voucher campaign was started by Manchester United Player, Marcus Rashford MBE. Marcus made a U-turn in combatting child food poverty during the Coronavirus Pandemic (Covid-19) when schools were forced to close.

The free vouchers that were given to out were worth £15 and could be spent at a variety of supermarket retailers.

With the Government voting against supplying these for future school holidays, communities, restaurants, and councils have come together to supply food to those families in need.

According to the Food Foundation Charity, 29% of children aged between 8 and 17 are registered for free school meals, which is the equivalent to 2.2 million children.

With a further 42% (equivalent to 900,000 children) are registered to the scheme set up by the Manchester United Player.

Sarah said: "Witihin hours, I had donations coming in to help out, as a mother myself it seemed like the selfless thing to do."

Sarah set up a base at her local pub, which is The Oxcart in North Bretton, Peterborough. Sarah and her husband sorted out the parcels with the help from The Oxcart staff and deliver them to those in families in need. “The Oxcart have been amazing in helping sort the parcels out."

Sarah told the Peterborough Telegraph, “I initially hoped to help maybe five or ten families, but I have received so much support and hopefully we can help many more.

She continued: “As soon as people at work found out what I was doing they all put their hands in their pockets and went shopping to grab stuff.

“I think it goes to show the spirit which exists in our community,” she said.

With hard work and all the food donations that Sarah received she has been able to help 62 children in 2 days.

“I cannot stress enough is if anyone is struggling, they should get in touch. No one should suffer alone,” Sarah said.

Sarah has had many donations and gained a lot of support appearing on BBC Radio Cambridgeshire, BBC Cambridge, and the Peterborough Telegraph.

She is also advising people not to buy fresh food as she will do this at the end of the week. With all the left-over money that has been donated will be handed over to her local Food Bank.

“I cannot thank my friends, families and communities enough for all their donations.”