Limerick mayor steps in to keep school breakfasts going for pupils

THE MAYOR of Limerick, John Moran, has responded to an appeal for help from St Munchin’s Community Centre by committing €10,000 from the Mayoral Fund to keep its school breakfast and food programme running for the coming year, subject to the necessary funding approvals.

The centre’s breakfast club opens at 8am each day and feeds more than 200 children before school, in partnership with local primary schools including Corpus Christi Primary School, Moyross.

For some of those children it is the main meal of the day.

Meals are cooked fresh by the centre’s qualified chefs using locally sourced ingredients, and every euro the social enterprise generates is reinvested in the centre.

Linda Ledger, CEO of St Munchin’s Community Centre, told the Mayor at a recent meeting that the centre is under extreme financial pressure, and that the programme in particular would have to stop after Halloween without new funding.

The centre has covered the gap from its own resources because of how much the programme matters to the children who use it.

Mayor John Moran wrote to Ms Ledger confirming the allocation of €10,000.

With this money, she can now commit to providing the existing service for a further 12 months.

The mayor said: “Children cannot learn on an empty stomach. Linda and her team feed more than 200 children every morning, and when the funding fell short, they covered the cost themselves. Local services are carrying extra pressure as national government steps back, and these children would be the innocent victims of that.

"School meals are a health equity issue, and I am not willing to see these children go without. This money gives schools and families certainty now and gives us time to work on a lasting solution with the centre and its partners.”