Member Article

Luton charity receives cash boost from Tesco's COVID-19 Community Fund

A Luton children’s charity has become one of the first in the area to benefit from a £500 Tesco grant, part of the retailer’s £52million package of support for local communities hit by the lockdown.

Earlier this month, Tesco’s CEO Dave Lewis outlined the retailer’s plans to provide more than £52m to local communities following the Covid 19 outbreak, continuing to give extra food and funding for FareShare, the Trussell Trust, donations of food for Salute the NHS, support for the British Red Cross and National Emergencies Trust, and a Bags of Help COVID-19 Community Fund, to support as many groups as possible with grants of £500.

Making full use of the grant, Luton-based charity Level Trust, has put the extra funding towards creating extra home learning packs to vulnerable children in the area. The local charity supports families to overcome the cost of education by providing home learning equipment packs, containing items such as pens, papers, craft materials and card games.

With 37% of families in Luton currently living below the poverty line, Level Trust supports more than 4,000 families across the town. The charity has seen demand for its services increase rapidly during lockdown, distributing over 1,600 learning packs in the last six weeks.

Jane Malcolm, CEO at Level Trust, said: “With thousands of children at home without the face to face support they would usually receive from school, it is a more important time than ever to help those most at need in our community.

“We are working tirelessly to meet the urgent need for supporting children and families through this difficult time. The £500 grant from Tesco has enabled us to help 50 families that need us most, and for that, we are extremely grateful.”

Jane continued: “To date, we have helped more than 13,000 children and families in Luton, and our longstanding relationship with businesses like Tesco have been extremely helpful to our work. The entire team at Level Trust would like to say a huge thank you!”

Keith Jackson, Communications Manager for Tesco in the East of England, said: “We’re doing everything we can to provide support for all at this difficult time and hopefully the £500 Bags of Help grant will go some way to help those groups still committed to helping others during this uncertain time.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Katie Rattigan .