Number of Children Waiting for KidsCan Support Reaches 6,218

As school starts again for the year the number of children waiting for support from the KidsCan Charity has reached 6,218. The charity which currently provides assistance to 448 low decile schools throughout New Zealand says these children are in urgent need of food, clothing, shoes and basic health and hygiene items to ensure they can get to school in a position to learn.

Says Julie Chapman KidsCan CEO and Founder, “In particular we have seen a worrying rise in the need for food for children who are coming through the school gates with nothing for breakfast or lunch. A year ago the average number of children needing food was 15% of the school roll. This has increased to 20% which is a sad situation”.

“To be able to take these children off our waiting list in term one, we need to raise awareness of the reasons why so many children are in hardship, along with much needed funds – in the vicinity of $360,000 annually”.

The 6,218 children attend 28 schools which are well spread across New Zealand including Northland, Auckland, Waikato, Hawkes Bay, Manawatu-Wanganui, Bay of Plenty, Wellington, Canterbury, West Coast, and Otago. Specifically, in the Auckland region there are 3,092 children who are waiting for our assistance from seven schools.

While many in our community are beginning to share in the benefits of the economic recovery, the latest figures indicate there are still 260,000 (1 in 4) Kiwi kids living in hardship. One of the contributing factors is the cost of housing, with many families spending more than 60% of their income on rent. This leaves very little money for food and other essentials such as petrol and clothing.

“Families in this position really struggle when unexpected costs such as doctors visits arise, and the food budget gets cut first so they can meet these costs. We believe this is a factor in the increased need we are seeing in schools throughout New Zealand” says Chapman.

Meeting the extra expenses of ‘Back to School’ time is also stressful for low income families, and KidsCan is calling for more caring Kiwis to support a child in need for $15 a month (50 cents a day) through its ‘In Our Own Backyard’ programme. $15 per month provides a child with food at school, a raincoat, shoes, socks and basic health and hygiene items. “Importantly” says Chapman “100% of donated funds go to meeting the needs of the children”.

The current KidsCan ‘Food for Kids’ programme assists more than 15,000 children a week, thanks to generous funding from Government, individual donors, Trusts and Foundations, Corporate Partners and Principal Partner Meridian Energy.

In addition more than 98,000 items of clothing and 90,000 health and hygiene items such as, head-lice treatments, dental kits, plasters and tissues were provided last year.

Other initiatives planned for this year include further collaboration with Meridian Energy in Christchurch to provide drink bottles to schools with the aim of reducing the incidence of children sharing them with others, which exposes them to health risks.

For more information on how to support the ‘In Our Own Backyard’ programme go to www.kidscan.org.nz

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