The owner of a bakery in North Belfast was inspired to start a daily breakfast club to make sure no child goes hungry amid the cost of living crisis.
John Kelly is the owner of Use Your Loaf Pound and a Penny Bakery on the Antrim Road, and wanted to start a free breakfast club for school children as he said "the thought of kids going hungry makes me sick."
The club, which started on Monday, October 31 and will run for the foreseeable future, gives children the option of fruit, juice, cereals, porridge, cereal bars, as well as warm food including toast, to make sure they get a good start to their day before school.
Read more: Meet the owner of North Belfast's 'pound and a penny' bakery
In a post on social media, John said: "If anyone needs our assistance call in we will sort you out. If we go out of business ourselves, I'd rather go out doing what we could for the people of our community and go out on a high and help.
"So Use Your Loaf and spread the word, we will do this for as long as we can, people should not have to choose between heating and eating."
Speaking to Belfast Live about the new initiative, John said he was sickened by the "unreal" price rises and heightened cost of living, and wanted to do all he could to help families who may be struggling.
He said: "People have been coming in and saying about the rising costs of gas and electric, with some saying they're having to choose between heating and eating.
"It's getting into the cold season now. You see some kids coming in and some are ordering something, while others are standing beside them looking away. We don't like to see any kids going without so we always try to do what we can.
"For the first day [of the breakfast club] today, there were a lot of people in already which just shows the need for this. It shows somebody needs to do something to help local people.
"With the rising costs of everything, it's hard for us to even do anything ourselves. I came into business with nothing, and I'll go out with nothing if I have to. But we wouldn't see people struggle or starving, we just have to do what we can to help.
"The thought of people in 2022 being hungry just makes me feel sick to my stomach. We open at 7am and kids start school at 9am, so we run the club between then for kids to get breakfast.
"There's a lot of schools in our area so if kids want to come in before they go for a breakfast. Even this week when schools are off, some kids might only get one hot meal a day there, and families may need the help, we don't know everyone's circumstances."
John and his team at Use Your Loaf are well-known for helping the local community. In the past, they have run free school meals for kids, they did free food deliveries for pensioners during lockdown, and hold an annual Christmas appeal for those less fortunate.
Earlier this year, they were giving away free kids clothes and nappies to help families struggling to make ends meet, with a Facebook post advertising this reaching over 110,000 people in a short period of time.
At the same time, John has always kept his prices as low as possible, to make sure the local community are never left hungry.
Use Your Loaf is located at 189 Antrim Road, Belfast, and you can find out more on their Facebook page here.
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