Tauranga Budget Advisory Service manager Diane Bruin said there had been high demand for food parcels during the school holidays as allocated food money was paying for back to school costs.
"A number of young mothers have been seeking food assistance this week due to back to school costs," she said.
Tom Paekau is the principal of Merivale School. Photo / File
Merivale School principal Tom Paekau said the decile 1 school was graded as the lowest decile school in the Western Bay of Plenty because of the "social inequities and underprivileged" in the community.
However, the principal said, unfortunately, there were inequities and underprivileged children that existed in all Kiwi communities.
Paekau said it was up to the school to provide the best pedagogical outcomes for their tamariki [children].
"While there are pockets of struggle within the school, we try to alleviate some of the financial strain on our whanau through sponsorship and support from external agencies," he said.
Children were provided food through the school's breakfast club, Milk For Schools, Fruit in Schools programmes and lunch donations, Paekau said.
"This means no child ever goes without food at Merivale."
The school was also this year able to discount all back to school stationery packs.
Greerton Village School principal Anne Mackintosh said schools had become more of a social agency by ensuring children had the necessities provided by volunteers such as KidsCan.
"Without their amazing hard work and generosity, some of our students would indeed go hungry and not have clothing, shoes etc either," she said.
"It is a grim state of affairs and a very sad indictment on what is happening socially, economically and politically to our children, our most vulnerable."
Mackintosh said the school had extra food baskets in all classrooms for children to help themselves if they needed.
"We don't monitor it as it is a deeply personal thing and some children feel very embarrassed if they do not have food nor do they want to present their parents in a bad light. We respect this," she said.
Platters with sandwiches, muesli bars and fruit were also available at lunchtime.
KidsCan's chief executive Julie Chapman said this time of year can be overwhelming for families on the breadline.
"Every day they survive on very little. So there's no money for new stationery, or school bags, or expensive uniforms - many don't even know how they'll afford to put food in their child's lunch box," she said.
Some parents won't send their children to school because they felt ashamed they can't make ends meet, Chapman said.
"Those that do go, start on the back foot because they don't have the right clothes, and they're hungry."
How KidsCan helps:
• The charity helps to feed an average 20 per cent of the roll in 742 schools
•More than 30,000 children a day are filled with baked beans, bread, spreads, yoghurt, fruit, scroggin, super grain bars, hot meals in winter
• Last year, KidsCan gave out 5.27 million food items, including 245,000 servings of baked beans, more than 130,000 loaves of bread and 1.6m packs of scroggin
• In 2018 the charity clothed 47,350 kids in warm jackets, and distributed 27,886 new pairs of shoes and socks. Girls received 22,000 boxes of tampons, pads and liners.
• In five years, the number of schools supported by KidsCan has almost doubled, from 388 to 742.
