Image Credit: Ginger Pixie Photography; Courtesy of Magic Breakfast

How You Are Helping to Support Children at Risk of Hunger

Together with Magic Breakfast, our hand sanitiser is providing morning meals to schoolchildren across the UK, ensuring no child is too hungry to learn.

As schools open across the country, they’re looking very different from previous years, with distanced desks in classrooms and empty lunchrooms. Many of us at Chantecaille are parents negotiating this stressful period with our kids, so when it came to choose a charitable cause to support with our Rose Geranium Basil Hand Sanitiser, we turned to one of the UK’s hardest-hit populations: children who rely on schools for nutrition.

“Thinking about kids in need while I was at home in quarantine with my own daughter, I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to go without food, especially during such an uncertain and serious time,” says Creative Director Olivia Chantecaille, whose daughter, Delphina, who will soon start first grade. Chantecaille is a company founded by mothers and we are so happy to be able to make an impact in the lives of families in need with this launch.”

"Chantecaille will provide a minimum of 5,000 breakfasts and help to free up 22,000 hours of learning."

Prior to the pandemic, 1.8 million school-age children in the UK were at risk of starting the day hungry. In its wake, the number is likely to have increased further. Magic Breakfast work to ensure that no child in any of their partner schools is too hungry to learn, by providing healthy breakfasts and expert support to reach pupils at risk of hunger. By partnering with the charity with proceeds from our hand sanitiser, Chantecaille will provide a minimum of 5,000 breakfasts and help to free up 22,000 hours of learning.

Courtesy of Magic Breakfast

This is important, because a child’s mental health and ability to learn can be gravely impacted by hunger. Research has shown that breakfast served in school can boost academic achievement by two months over a year for students ages 5 to 7. As Magic Breakfast programme participants have put it:

"You focus more on your belly hurting than you do on your learning if you haven't had breakfast." – Child, age 9

"One family who often turned up for school without breakfast would regularly say they felt unwell or wouldn't be able to concentrate in class. They are benefitting hugely from having a regular breakfast and are more alert, switched on to learning and far more settled in class." – Teacher at a Magic Breakfast partner school

Magic Breakfast work with 480 primary, secondary and ASL/special ed schools across England and Scotland to ensure that around 50,000 vulnerable schoolchildren, who would otherwise go hungry in the morning, have access to school breakfast. Since lockdown started in March, they have continued to provide breakfasts to vulnerable children through novel ways: parents can collect food packs from schools or other collection points, staff and volunteers distribute meals to children at home, and home deliveries have made it to thousands of families through a partnership with Amazon.

“It has been a crucially important aspect of our hand sanitiser launch is that with it, we are raising funds for Magic Breakfast,” founder and CEO Sylvie Chantecaille says. “Children are not always able to help themselves in times of need and at the start of this pandemic, it was immediately clear that children were enormously vulnerable. Unfortunately, it is not uncommon that the only guaranteed meal a child gets daily is served at school, and with school closures, this can mean that many go without food. We are thrilled to provide up to 5,000 breakfasts to children without access to the food they need.”

Those interested in learning more, donating, or becoming further involved with the charity are encouraged to visit Magic Breakfast’s website.

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