Free jam sandwiches are being given out to anyone who needs them by the newly formed Islington Food Project from a stall next to South Library on Essex Road.
The project is distributing sandwiches from 7am to 8am to target children on their way to school, starting yesterday and continuing every second and fourth Wednesday of each month.
The organisers chose jam for its cheap price, to appeal to children and for being easy to prepare, so posing less Covid-risk than making sandwiches with numerous ingredients.
One of the organisers, who goes just by his first name Scott, feels that “things are only going to get worse” and that the project has launched at a time when it is needed most.
He added: “it’s needed for people to come together and try and help people who are struggling.”
The nationwide foodbank network, Trussell Trust, has reported that Covid-19 has magnified demands on food organisations, having “given out a record 2,600 food parcels a day to children since the start of the pandemic”.
Scott commented that there was a stigma in schools around taking free school meals, explaining that their project targeted children on their way to school because it was important to offer children food outside the school environment.
“Islington has one of the highest child poverty rates in London […] the amount going to school hungry is just terrible,” he said.
The organisers of The Islington Food Project are also members of the London Anarchist Federation.
Scott said: “Right now we’ve relied on some funds from the London Anarchist Federation […] they’ve been supporting this – mutual aid is very much what anarchism is about.”
The project is aiming to be entirely donation based after two or three months. Scott concluded: “We want this to be a community helping itself.”
