Children 'pretending to eat from empty lunchboxes'

Schoolchildren from struggling families have pretended to eat out of empty lunchboxes to save their embarrassment at having no food, an organisation that supports charities said.

The MK Community Foundation spoke to the BBC as part of the launch of its invisible poverty campaign, which it hopes will raise money for people struggling with the cost of living this winter.

Claire Baldock, from the foundation in Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, said: "A lot of people believe the cost-of-living crisis is something we are recovering from, but we are still in the depths of it.

"More than one in three children in the city are living in poverty and over 40% of universal credit claimants living there are actually in work."

Mrs Baldock continued: "People find [it] very hard to believe when we look around at this shiny new city. But like any city, there's massive pockets of deprivation and charities such as St Mark's Meals MK and MK storehouse are seeing parents struggling to clothe their children with winter clothes and to give them lunches.

"We've heard of children pretending to eat lunches out of empty lunchboxes, because they're so embarrassed that they haven't got food.

"We've heard of parents who are starving themselves for days because they want to give that child food. That sounds surreal that that's happening in a city like Milton Keynes in 2024, but unfortunately it happens every day around us and we just don't know about."

The foundation provides funding to grass roots groups and charities.

In its latest campaign, four case studies were created based on the experiences of real individuals the organisation said were "struggling in silence."

One story highlighted was that of 32-year-old "Lucy" - a single parent from Milton Keynes, who juggles work and family life, but found that skyrocketing costs meant she could not meet basic needs.

Mrs Baldock said it hoped to highlight that poverty was not just about the homeless but "there are people moving around you, your colleagues or a neighbour or friends or family who are struggling too".

She told the BBC that "in-work poverty is massively on the rise" and that "key workers who cannot afford the basic essentials of everyday life" were among those forced to seek help.

Two years ago, Milton Keynes Council declared a cost-of-living emergency and said that one in five of its adult residents could not pay their bills that winter.

Mrs Baldock feels that things have got worse since.

She added that a "very conservative estimate" was that 8,000 families in Milton Keynes will not be turning on the heating this winter.

Because "fuel is needed for eating as well", some people were just eating cold meals as they could not afford the power for a warm meal.

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