Healthy Glasgow is part of the Morgan Stanley Healthy Cities
programme, an initiative designed originally to bring together the
fundamentals children need for a healthy start. In Glasgow, it
focuses on giving back to the local community, specifically St
Stephens's and St Kevin's primary schools in Sighthill, north east
of the city centre.
Morgan Stanley partners with two charities, Magic Breakfast and
PEEK (Possibilities for Each and Every Kid), to help build
knowledge and awareness of a healthy lifestyle and healthy eating.
This includes delivering an in-school Holiday Club which provides
play sessions, a nutritious breakfast for children throughout each
holiday period and cookery classes for parents and children which
include a healthy lunch and learning vital skills.
Since its launch in 2017, the programme has delivered over
56,000 healthy meals, 23,000 hours of play, 100 cookery classes and
more than 800 Morgan Stanley volunteer hours. Through this
collaborative work, the team has identified other opportunities for
Morgan Stanley to build on the existing charity partnership and
fund additional initiatives.
This includes donations for a children's winter clothing
collection, the Reading Partners programme, in which Morgan Stanley
volunteers help children learn to read and an ad-hoc office
donation to ensure children were able to go on a school trip to
Belfast.
Funding from Morgan Stanley has also enabled expansion of the
focus on nutrition, including the addition of bagel breakfasts in
school, provided by Magic Breakfast, as well as PEEK's nutrition
guidance sessions for parents and children.
Sighthill is the focus of a major regeneration project led by
Glasgow City Council which plans to build 1,000 new homes, shops
and a pedestrian bridge allowing easy access to Glasgow city
centre. A new school campus opened in November 2019, to provide
state-of-the-art facilities to its children and staff; the impact
of which will undoubtedly be profound. The Morgan Stanley Healthy
Glasgow team was fortunate enough to attend the school opening and
share the joy on the day with the children, staff and charity
partners.
Looking ahead to future plans for Healthy Glasgow, the
devastating impact of COVID-19 has meant an urgent change of tack
required in 2020, to ensure that vulnerable children and families
can continue to be supported, whilst respecting government
guidelines and protecting personal safety.
The pandemic has accentuated concerns about food
insecurity and the demand for healthy food has become the
communities' most fundamental ask. Schools and charities have
turned to PEEK to provide help, with a consequent pivot to the way
they work.
So far, PEEK has provided over 220,000 meals, as well as dry and
fresh food, to children, young people and families across Glasgow,
distributed 140 individual grants to vulnerable children and young
people, delivered over 300 arts & crafts and 'play at home'
packs and over 350 health & wellbeing packs to children, young
people and families.
They are working to deliver much needed food and craft and
wellbeing packs to families identified by St Stephen's and St
Kevin's. The incredible efforts have been recognised nationally
with Prince William recently thanking the team at PEEK
virtually.
Magic Breakfast quickly repurposed its school-based breakfast
provision model in response to lockdown and school closures to
ensure children who would usually have access to a nutritious
breakfast at school could still receive this food at home.
While schools were closed to most pupils, Magic Breakfast delivered
food for breakfast packs to schools, local hubs nominated by its
partner schools, or to the doorsteps of pupils' homes. Over
717 children in Glasgow received fortnightly Magic Breakfast packs
during lockdown and the recent school holidays, with up to 2209
children benefitting from this continuity of breakfast provision in
Scotland as a whole.
The remainder of 2020 remains uncertain; however, Morgan
Stanley's collaboration continues to be as strong as ever.
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