FEEDING CHILDREN IN NEED
AFTER LOCKDOWN... BOTTOMLESS LUNCHES AT AMALFI WHITE! Friday and Saturday we offer bottomless lunches if you order from our a la Carte menu for £13.95. Enjoy the fizz for two hours!
No. 336 November 2020
by LUCY STEPHENS
KIND-HEARTED organisations in Melbourne and Aston-on-Trent rallied round to offer meals and money for children’s food after the majority of MPs voted not to extend Free School Meals over the October half-term. Local bodies offering help included Melbourne Methodist Church, Tori & Ben’s Farm Shop and The Village Shop in Aston-on-Trent. The Free School Meals scheme was extended to include food vouchers in the summer holidays this year after a campaign by Manchester United footballer Marcus Rashford. But MPs voted against providing the same thing in the most recent October half-term. Congregation members at Melbourne Methodist Church offered a £10 Sainsbury’s food voucher to any families who needed help, regardless of whether or not they received free school meals. Parents were given a number to call in confidence. Rev Sally Ratcliffe said congregation members had overwhelmingly supported the scheme, born out of a sense of “frustration” at the Government’s decision. The offer had seen some take-up over half term, she said. “It was an idea that came out of a prayer meeting at church,” she said. “We made an appeal to our members that we needed money to enable a £10 voucher from Sainsbury’s to give to any family. We had an overwhelming response and we have some money
that we hope to use over Christmas. “We’re very keen to support anybody who finds themselves in difficulty.” Tori & Ben’s Farm Shop offered to donate a hot meal to any children over half-term lunch times. Owner Tori Stanley said: “For us as farmers and parents, fresh food is the foundation of children’s growth and development. In the society we live in, under any challenges we face should children from any background be deprived of this basic need? Children are our future. It’s our duty to feed them. This is why it’s vital to support British farmers so we have complete food security as a nation.” Aston Village Shop also offered to provide free children’s packed lunches over half-term. Owner Steve Clennell said: “Somebody came into the shop wanting to give some money to give some lunches for children who normally would get the free lunches.” He said there had been donations of cash, and meat from a local farmer. South Derbyshire MP Heather Wheeler, who voted against offering money for free school meals in half-term, thanked local organisations for their “kind generosity” in offering food for children. However, she said that the suggestion by Opposition MPs that the Conservative party were depriving children of food was “unjust and untrue”. Mrs Wheeler said she had not voted to take free school meals away from children, but that the Government had given an “unprecedented amount of support to families” and had extended free school meals to pupils during the pandemic. n See Page 8 for Mrs Wheeler’s statement in full.
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Two-minute flights silence It’s a thumbs-up from Tori Taylor, who has walked hundreds of miles over the last two months. Find out why on Page 4.
SILENCE is set to reign over local skies at 11am on November 11 after East Midlands Airport agreed to suspend flights for two minutes. Melbourne Parish Council had asked airport community engagement manager Colleen Hempson at a meeting on October 6 whether a two-minute suspension of flights could be considered on Remembrance Day. The hour of 11am on November 11 is the time at which the silence is tradi-
tionally held to mark the moment when the guns finally fell silent in the First World War. But in local villages such as Melbourne, the solemnity of the moment can be interrupted by the sound of flights. Colleen responded to councillors after the meeting to say that the airport had agreed to the request. The air traffic control manager is organising things so that there will be no departures or arrivals
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between 11am and 11.02, and that there will be no overflights within the airport’s control zone during the same period. The only exception will be if there is an air ambulance departing on a code Alpha flight. Nigel Collyer, the parish councillor who had first suggested that the airport could be asked to suspend flights, said: “On a personal level, I thought it was a very good gesture from the airport to offer to do that.”
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