Host fund-raising game dinners to feed kids in food poverty

To continue feeding those in need, including rising numbers of children, the Country Food Trust is urging us to hold fund-raising game dinners on Feb 26th

The Country Food Trust is inviting you to host The Country Food Dinner Party at your home on Friday 26th February for as many guests as space allows, or as COVID19 rules permit.

The goal is for over 2,000 people to attend individual dinners across the country, with each party raising vital funds to ensure another 250,000 meals can reach those in need, including children and their families.

There will be online access to both a silent and a live auction for everyone attending, and a prize for the group who raises the most money on the night and many other fun categories besides!

So, the charity urges you to call your friends and family, rally the troops, be part of the fun, give your friends something to look forward to and help make a difference to young lives this winter. To see other ways to help support this wonderful cause, click here

About the Country Food Trust

In 2016, The Joseph Rowntree Foundation estimated that 14 million people in the UK are living in poverty and have to decide between the basic necessities such as food, clothing and heating. The founders of the Country Food Trust decided they should tackle one element of this and focus on food.

In order to do that they set about creating a community of stakeholders to produce and distribute delicious, nutritious and balanced meals made from countryside produce. The meals are given free to those people living in poverty, and are also sold to those people who appreciate country food in order to help them raise the fudns to feed more people.

The Country Food Trsut website described their work as follows: “In simple terms, we are a charity food producer making top quality protein based food that we donate to charities who feed people in need. The charity is funded by individuals, companies, shoots, trusts and other charitable organisations. See how you can help.

“We started by speaking to charities that told us they get a lot of nutritionally low value food – but very little meat and they had little chilling or freezer capacity. We knew there were affordable, plentiful and nutritional meat sources available which we could turn into meals and we worked with charities on the product design.

“Currently we have two products, The Country Casserole, a nutritious and warming pheasant casserole and The Country Curry, a mildly spicy pheasant curry.

“In our first year we produced 20,408 meals and since inception we have produced over 1,000,000 meals. These meals are donated either directly to people in food poverty, charities who feed people in need or through amazing charities like FareShare who distribute food nationwide to other charities. Please see our page on our recipient charities.”

Children in food poverty

The plight of school children was brought sharply into focus for the Country Food Trust thanks to the extraordinary work of their partner FareShare, and their incredible ambassador Marcus Rashford. They drew attention to the 1 million plus children who are living in food poverty in the UK, and for whom school provides not just an education but also nourishment. The Covid 19 pandemic has only worsened their situation.

This year The Country Food Trust started work on their third ready meal and aimed it specifically at children in need. With the help of the charity’s Consultant Chef, Tim Maddams, they launched their delicious venison-based Country Bolognese in the Autumn. The charity deliberately elected to only use venison that was shot with non-lead ammunition, as this meant that all venison meals that they produced were suitable for children as well as their families.

To date, the charity has over 75,000 orders for this new meal with their producer which will be delivered directly to families before Christmas.

This year The Country Food Trust need to raise even more funds to help children and their families in need and have a target to raise another £250,000 before Spring 2021. This is where the game dinners come in, and where you can help. Let’s pull together to do what we can to support this wonderful charity in their mission to end food poverty in the UK.