Food for Families initiative serves up bigger helping

Back in March last year, Les Cotils was approached by the Bank of Butterfield in the hope of sponsoring an initiative that would help the community during a difficult time.

That was how Food for Families came about and 85 families were given nutritious meals and groceries.

At the start of the second lockdown, the bank approached Les Cotils again with the idea of restarting the project to help those most in need.

Managing director of Les Cotils Fiona Naftel said: ‘We worked with various professional bodies, including child services, health visitors, head teachers, Wigwam and Bright Beginnings and they nominated families that they thought would benefit the most from this initiative.’

This time around, 140 families were supported.

Groceries were secured from the Co-op and nutritious meals were cooked by chefs at Les Cotils.

‘All families got a meal four times per week, as well as milk, butter, fruit, vegetables and anything else we thought they might need,’ Ms Naftel said.

The aim was to help out in a non-patronising and non-intrusive way so bags of food were left on doorsteps of families.

‘One time someone did come out and thanked me when I was leaving,’ Ms Naftel said.

‘They told me they’d been waiting for this as they hadn’t had anything to eat all day. They were so grateful for the gesture.’

The initiative highlighted the real need for this kind of support in the island and the team at Les Cotils were keen

to do more.

As a result, a new project called Fruit for Schools was introduced.

‘Each week 1,000 pieces of fruit are distributed among primary schools in the island so that youngsters who may not have fruit as part of their lunch boxes will be able to access some,’ she said.

‘Looking ahead, we’re going to develop the project further and will look to work with the schools, professional bodies and the Health Improvement Commission to do that.’