A drive which helps struggling families to feed their children during the school holidays needs the help of the Sidmouth community.

Sid Valley Food Bank is running the scheme which gives parents with children that normally have free school dinners, lunches throughout the summer, helping them to make ends meet.

Andie Miles, foodbank co-ordinator, said they had run the scheme for the past five years, supporting 20 clients and 46 children every year.

Last year it cost around £1,500 to run.

She added: “We are the only food bank that does this.

“We will be helping children who have free school meals.

“Suddenly, for six weeks, parents have to find extra meals in the holidays.

“If you have three children – it is an extra 15 meals a week that you need to find, which is a lot with no support.

“We would like to appeal to the community to donate the needed ingredients, money or time volunteering, so that we can continue to run this scheme this year.”

Among the items on the shopping list are tinned tuna and sweetcorn, baked beans, spaghetti hoops and tinned macaroni cheese, tinned pineapple rings and packets of crisps as well as small jars of mayonnaise, spreadable butter, tinned peaches and fruit, custard and rice pudding.

On the list of fresh items needed are baked potatoes, ham, cheese, pizza, bread, fresh fruit, yogurts and all types of milks

Andie said it was a really important scheme which helped the area’s most deprived families and appealed to anyone that could help the scheme run for the next six weeks.

She added: “We would also like to remind families who are struggling that the Salvation Army provides lunch on Thursdays at the youth centre, in Manstone Lane.”

Contact Angie Carney through facebook.com/sidmouthsalvos for more information about this.

Contact Andie on the food bank’s Facebook page at facebook.com/SidValleyFoodBank for more details on donating food or becoming a volunteer at the food bank.

Andie said she would like to thank Dukes, the organisers of the Dogtastic charity event in Sidmouth and an anonymous benefactor who donated two weeks of Tesco delivers, worth £250.