Between 2015 and 2016, approximately 60,000 people in the Liverpool City Region are known to have accessed a food bank. However, there is no official measurement in place for hunger in the UK, so that actual number is unknown although it is estimated to double the number recorded. This included low paid workers, unemployed, disabled and sick people, new parents, young people leaving care, elderly people – the list goes on.

This figure doesn’t account for the thousands of people who didn’t access food banks and borrowed money to feed themselves, or those who went silently hungry until they could next afford food. Additionally, there are thousands of families in the Liverpool City Region living on the verge of food crisis, whose income doesn’t allow for fresh food in their diets.

At Can Cook we believe that good food is a human right and that everybody should have access to fresh food by choice, regardless of their circumstances. In 2016, we joined forces with Simon Rimmer and the Liverpool Echo to launch the Share Your Lunch campaign, raising funds to generate thousands of free, fresh meals for hungry people in Merseyside.

Working alongside corporate partners, sponsors and the people of Merseyside we have raised over £50,000 to date, generating enough free meals to provide thousands of hungry people in the region with nutritious food in their time of crisis.

2017 will see the launch of phase 2 of the Share Your Lunch campaign, addressing the need for holiday food provision for children across the Liverpool City Region. in Liverpool alone, around 45%, or some 35,000 children live below the poverty line and are at risk of hunger through the Summer holidays when they are unable to access a school meal. Working alongside play scheme and holiday club providers The Share Your Lunch campaign will make thousands of fresh meals available to children in Liverpool and Knowsley this Summer, who may otherwise go without. For further details, please contact laura@cancook.co.uk.