HUNDREDS of freshly-cooked meals will continue to provided to pensioners thanks to a partnership between Dorset Community Foundation and BCP Council.

The community foundation has distributed £80,000 of the council’s Winter Support funding to 14 food projects across the area through its Dorset Coronavirus Community Fund.

Among the recipients is The Friendly Food Project, which has been awarded £5,970 to buy a van and temperature-resistant packaging to transport the meals around Bournemouth, Poole and Christchurch.

Founder Tony Gibbons said: “We deliver 350 a week so the van will be a big help.

“The need will still be there even after lockdown because some of the older people have been indoors for so long now and are still worried about what is going on. It will take months for them to get back.

“Food shopping is still difficult for many so to get a fresh meal delivered is great for them. One of the most important things about that is that our volunteers who deliver have got time to have a chat.

“That human contact is just as important as the food and it might be the only face they see that day.”

The funding is the sixth grant the club has received from the community foundation during the pandemic, after receiving more than £28,000 to deliver Cookboxes to low-income families who were missing out on free school meals during the lockdowns.

The boxes come full of ingredients and recipes, which are accompanied by a link to an instructional YouTube video made by one of the group’s six part-time tutors.

The boxes were an extension of the club’s family cookery workshops, aimed at encouraging pre-school and primary aged youngsters to cook with their families.

The cookery workshops are advertised on the club’s Facebook page and held in venues such as Townsend Community Centre, the URC and The Spire Centre in Poole or the Leigh Park Community Centre in Wimborne.

“We started with 16 Cookboxes on the Townsend estate in May and by the end of July we had delivered nearly 5,000 to more than 250 families all over the area,’ said Mr Gibbons.

“It just exploded because we were focusing on families who were locked in and many were losing free school meals.

“We aim at kids because they are the next generation, we’ve already lost three generations of mums who don’t know how to cook,” said Mr Gibbons, who at 82 shows no sign on slowing down with the club he founded seven years ago.

The success if the Cookboxes was a major factor in Mr Gibbons being awarded the National Lottery Award for Education last year.

The Cookbox project has been such an unexpected success Dorset Council has decided to fund it to feed youngsters entitled to free school meals over the holidays this year. It will trial 1,400 boxes at Easter and then send out 8,500 over the summer.

Dorset Community Foundation Director Grant Robson said: “It is fantastic to team up with BCP Council to help groups like The Friendly Food Club, who do an incredible job in inspiring young people and feeding so many others.”

For details of how to donate to the Dorset Community Coronavirus Fund, go to dorsetcommunityfoundation.org.