You may remember that earlier in the year, I blogged about children having breakfast. It was prompted by a bloggers' event arranged by Kellogg's and they shared some shocking statistics about how many children miss breakfast.
Back in September - which seems like ages ago now - they invited a handful of bloggers to a spa at the Lowry Hotel in Manchester. It wasn't all glamour - they shared some information with us having updated their research. 1.7 million children do not have breakfast and 325,000 of those children eat nothing until lunchtime. And of the ones that miss breakfast but eat something beforehand, a sizeable chunk buy chocolate, crisps, even burgers on the way to school. Not great. We all know the benefits of breakfast, both in improved concentration and performance at school, as well as helping to prevent obesity.
The other thing they wanted to tell us was about their work with breakfast clubs in schools. Kellogg's, over the last 13 years, have been helping schools by investing £1.5 million to promote the benefits of breakfast clubs and they can provide grants to help set them up. In some schools, breakfast clubs aren't just about the childcare and convenience, they are often the only way some children actually get a breakfast. The fact that they are affordable means that working parents on lower incomes can access the services without it making a large dent in their income. Breakfast clubs help with attendance rates, punctuality, even their behaviour. I wish our school had a dedicated breakfast club but instead, the school has access to one at the school across the road and the children have to be walked down from there.
Of course, in the current climate, these vital services are under threat as funding for anything other than frontline services comes under threat. Many breakfast clubs are under threat of closure as a result, which is a damned shame. And of course, the families that will be hit the hardest by this will be the lower income families.
In order to help, Kellogg's have started a campaign called Give a Child a Breakfast to do just that. For every special pack of Kellogg's Cornflakes sold, Kellogg's will donate 3p to the Kellogg Breakfast Club Trust with the aim of raising at least £300,000 which will help to provide 1 million breakfasts to school children. If your school has a breakfast club, you can apply for a grant, maximum £450 (£400 cash, £50 Kellogg's voucher) here.
Kellogg's want to spread the breakfast club love a little further by offering one lucky reader the chance to win a year's supply of breakfast cereal (around 100 boxes) for their school's breakfast club. It doesn't have to be your child's school - it could be the school where that your grandchildren, nieces or nephews attend, or you could be a teacher or member of staff at a school that really could do with the help for their breakfast club.
All you have to do to enter is follow this blog through your RSS reader (click on the orange jellybean) or via email (red jellybean - and don't forget to activate the subscription!) then leave me a comment, telling me what your favourite thing about your breakfast club is, either in your eyes or the children's a bit like the children did here - which are hilarious by the way. Leave your comment here by Friday 2nd December at 8pm.
Terms and conditions
To enter, leave a comment below, as specified above, along with a valid contact email address or Twitter ID, which will be used to contact you if you win.
Please ensure you follow this blog via RSS or email, or your entry may be discarded.
Maximum one entry per person - multiple entries will be discarded.
This competition is open to all but the prize can only be given to a school breakfast club so please ensure the relevant school has a breakfast club running.
The prize is a year's supply of breakfast cereal, which is approximately 100 boxes of cereal.
The competition closes on Friday 2nd December at 8pm.
The winner will be drawn at random from all valid entries.
The winner will be contacted that evening and asked to respond with the requested information within 48 hours or the winner will be re-drawn.
UK entrants only.
There is no cash alternative.
The prize is a year's supply of breakfast cereal, which is approximately 100 boxes of cereal.
The competition closes on Friday 2nd December at 8pm.
The winner will be drawn at random from all valid entries.
The winner will be contacted that evening and asked to respond with the requested information within 48 hours or the winner will be re-drawn.
UK entrants only.
There is no cash alternative.
Good luck!
(Kellogg's kindly paid my travel expenses to attend the Lowry Spa, as well as providing lunch and a couple of lovely pampering treatments, and have donated the prize for the competition. All words and opinions are my own and I have received no other compensation for publishing this post.)
(Kellogg's kindly paid my travel expenses to attend the Lowry Spa, as well as providing lunch and a couple of lovely pampering treatments, and have donated the prize for the competition. All words and opinions are my own and I have received no other compensation for publishing this post.)