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Regional daily bids to end child hunger in city it serves

A bid to help end child hunger in one of England’s biggest cities has been launched by a regional daily.

The Liverpool Echo has launched its ‘Share Your Lunch’ campaign to help feed the poor of Liverpool, and is urging readers to donate £2 to help provide healthy meals for those in poverty.

The campaign was launched on the Echo’s front page on Wednesday, pictured below, after it revealed on Monday that up to 25,000 children in Merseyside had been fed by food banks in the past year, while up to 50,000 were at risk of going hungry.

Each £2 donated to the Echo’s appeal will go to social enterprise Can Cook, which campaigns against food poverty and provides meals for the less fortunate.

Liverpool share

In a piece announcing the campaign’s launch, Echo editor Alastair Machray wrote: “I was ashamed when I read Monday’s Echo. 25,000 children in Merseyside fed by food banks in the last 12 months. And they are the lucky ones. Many, many more simply went hungry.

“Imagine it. A child, here on Merseyside, going to bed hungry. And this is 2016, in one of the most civilised and technically advanced nations on earth.

“As a parent it gets to you, doesn’t it? I’ve got two kids – one grown up and one 13. They’ve never known what’s it’s like to be truly hungry or to be uncertain about where the next proper meal is coming from.”

The Echo revealed children at a North Liverpool community centre had been suffering from stomach cramps and tiredness because they hadn’t been fed properly.

Alastair added: “Why does food poverty exist in this country and in this day and age? Austerity. Zero hours contracts. Rising food prices. Ignorance. Reliance on low-nutrition takeaways . There are many reasons and it won’t be possible to solve them all at a stroke.

“What we can do is make sure hungry people get fed. And that we feed them with fresh, nutritious food that improves their health and allow them to make good decisions.

“Money is short. But this, as we all know, is the most generous part of the country when it comes to charitable giving. For every £2 we get, we can feed another mouth and improve another life.

“Help if you can, using the panel on this page and by following this campaign in the weeks ahead in your Echo. I know you can’t stand by and see families go hungry.”

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  • August 19, 2016 at 10:11 am
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    Fair play but there’s always a lot of double standards when it comes to this stuff.

    For example, my local Tesco collects items from shoppers to be sent to food banks, and yet has about a dozen automated checkouts where once they would have had staff, staff who are now unemployed and unable to put food on the table.

    Trinity Mirror relentlessly puts profits before staff, whether it’s bringing in new software to put subs on the dole or whatever.

    It’s all part of a tapestry isn’t it? And not a particularly complex one either, if you’re a fully paid up contributor to an economic system that puts shareholder profits before the long term economic health of society then don’t act surprised when it starts coming apart at the seams.

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