Parents turning to crime to feed their families

Parents are turning to crime and stealing food as they struggle to feed their children and families, according to a Brighouse charity.

Brighouse and Surrounding Homeless charity is launching a pilot scheme to help families during the school holidays.

Alison Mitchell, who founded the charity, said one mother was caught stealing a packet of biscuits worth 21p from a local store during the Easter holidays.

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When caught and questioned the woman admitted that she didn’t want to steal anything at all so picked the cheapest thing she could find.

“It emerged that the woman had gone days without food due to struggling to feed her children who would normally be fed through the day at school,” said Alison.

“Bash Local are concerned that there must be more families suffering in silence in our area.”

“We have had a couple of mums in our foodbank that have stated that they do not know what they will do when it comes to the school holidays.

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“If we had not heard about this incident then we would not know that any families were struggling.

“We have spoken to Jayne Leech at North Bank Forum who says no other foodbank is trialling this service and we have spoken to Field Lane Primary School, Rastrick, who feel they have many families who would benefit from our support.”

Rebecca Snow, foodbank manager for BASH, wants all families who find themselves struggling in the holidays to get in touch and see how they can be supported.

The charity said that although this will put some strain on the resources they are confident that more donations and funding will come flooding in.

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It was revealed earlier in the year that a total of 8,625 children are living in income deprived homes throughout Calderdale.

The figure released came in a report reviewing the work being done by the Child Poverty Taskforce and the Income Deprivation Affecting Children Index showed that 21 per cent of all children aged 0-15 in Calderdale live in deprived households.

To help support the BASH scheme or find yourself in need, please contact the team on 01484950506.

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