Southend 'hungry cupboards' to be put in classrooms

Southend charity St Vincent de Paul has spearheaded the initiative which will see food donation points which have been designed by schoolchildren put in classrooms around the city.

The aim of the scheme is to encourage food donations and to raise awareness of poverty.

Now, the best designs have been selected following a competition and the cupboards are set to be delivered to schools by the end of May.

Chloe Gibson, from Chalkwell Hall Junior School, and Eden-Rose Watts, from the Darlinghurst Academy had their designs picked and were visited last week by St Vincent’s manager Daniel Cauchi and Southend West MP Anna Firth.

Mr Cauchi said: “We already have seven of our cupboards ready to go to schools and they will be sent out across May.

“We have also just been donated some 3D printers so what used to take us 12 hours to print will now take us 12 minutes.

“The biggest thing about the hungry cupboards is changing people’s mindsets. We are trying to move away from the idea that Christmas, harvest and Easter are the only times that people can donate.

“We need donations on a daily basis so the cupboard is a visual representation to remind people and that people are starving and need support.

“The actual message is that we need to feed people, rather than someone in a school just bringing in the occasional tin, we have 16 classes each filling their hungry cupboard.”

Mr Cauchi added that there is a twofold benefit of this, as a lot of the people they work with in recovery programmes can “keep themselves busy” working on a hungry cupboard.

“On the back of that, we can then go into schools and use the hungry cupboard as a preventative measure, by educating people on homelessness,” he said.

The initiative received a generous boost from Tim Kay, CEO of 3D Filaprint, who provided £500 in funding, allowing the design winners to receive £250 of Amazon vouchers for their schools.