New bank deal to raise funds for Magic Breakfasts for hungry schoolchildren

A two-year deal has been agreed by the Magic Breakfast charity to provide more children from deprived areas with a meal before they start lessons.

It comes in a partnership agreement with Bank of America Merrill Lynch for bank staff to use their skills for raising funds to provide healthy breakfasts at school.

“We will pull out all the stops to raise funds to help children,” the bank’s Alex Wilmot-Sitwell said.

“One cannot overestimate the importance of a healthy meal to start the day and the long-term benefits this can bring.”

Breakfast clubs are being set up in schools similar to the successful pilot projects in Tower Hamlets primary schools in London’s deprived East End over the past four years.

The charity estimates half-a-million children in Britain arrive at school each day too hungry or malnourished to learn.

The most important lessons are in the morning, so one nutritious breakfast can unlock up to four hours of crucial learning for a child who would otherwise be ‘running on empty’ and unable to concentrate, the charity points out.

Year 2 children at schools giving a free, nutritious breakfast before lessons were better at reading, writing and maths by as much as two months over the course of an academic year, it found.