Free children’s educational book to be gifted to those receiving food parcels in Sheffield

9th April 2020

Sheffield S6 foodbank has formed a partnership with a local publisher to support and lift the spirits of the community by sending children’s books along with food parcels to families.

Twinkl, based on Ecclesall Road, donated 500 of its ‘Starry-eyed Stan’ books, a rhyming story set under the sea, to help bring joy to families facing particular challenges at this time. The book is one of the educational publishersTwinkl Originals, a range of books that the company has been producing from its Sheffield headquarters since 2018.

Flow Solutions UK Ltd, a leading direct mail and fulfilment company, delivered the books free of charge to the S6 Foodbank. The team there then coordinated the distribution of the books to their outlets and families primarily based in Hillsborough, Sharrow, Upperthorpe, Crookes, Broomhall and Parsons Cross.

S6 Foodbank is a cluster of foodbanks and part of the Foodbank network, founded by local churches and community groups. The organisation is part of The Trussell Trust’s network of 428 foodbanks, working to tackle food poverty and hunger in communities across the UK.

Sam Evans, Director of youth and Social Action for Sheffield S6 Foodbank, said:

“Twinkl has made it possible to provide more holistic help to children and families in Sheffield. The books Twinkl has donated will help children to continue with their education and create a little bit of normality during the coronavirus crisis.

“The books were donated earlier this week and are already being given to families in Sheffield. They have been a real hit with the children and families who are enjoying the opportunity to support learning at home.”

Jonathan Seaton, Co-founder and CEO at Twinkl, said: “The work the S6 Foodbank does is vitally important and we know parents and carers are doing incredible things to support their children’s education at this time. We are pleased we have been able to do something towards supporting them and hope this goes some way towards helping. We know lots of businesses, organisations and communities are doing amazing things to help others at this time and we hope that this continues and others will be inspired to help however they can too.”

Twinkl, which creates online educational materials, has provided a free code which gives all parents, teachers and carers access to all over 635,000 teaching and learning materials. This can be done by visiting www.twinkl.co.uk/offer and entering the code CVDTWINKLHELPS alongside an email and password.