Sainsbury’s and Comic Relief are committed to tackling food poverty and have identified limitations within the current Government-funded Holiday Activity and Food (HAF) scheme. This programme will fund summer school holiday activity and food schemes with the aim of:
- Providing food to children experiencing food poverty which will, in turn, increase their health and wellbeing.
- Addressing gaps in the current provision and reviewing the impact of this programme.
- Raising awareness of child food poverty through storytelling and publicity, in turn generating further funds towards activity tackling food poverty.
- Showcasing how summer holiday childhood food poverty can be tackled differently to potentially develop a larger scale programme in the future.
Comic Relief has also identified a specific gap in supporting children and young people with a disability with food and activities during the summer and this fund is interested in supporting organisations that can support increased and/or improved access to schemes for children and young people with disabilities.
What can the fund support?
The aim of the programme is to provide school children (up to Year 11) with improved access to summer holiday activity and food schemes. The programme will support organisations who already provide food and holiday activities to increase access and reach. It will also support organisations that currently do not provide such activities but feel well-placed to deliver a summer food and activity scheme.
We will fund organisations with a total annual income of up to £500,000 in their previous financial year.
Types of project that might be funded:
- Expansion of an existing summer holiday food and activity programme, enabling more children to attend.
- Expansion of an existing summer holiday food and activity programme to more hours per day, more days per week or more weeks of the summer holiday.
- A new food and activity scheme where an organisation is well placed to engage children and have the programme up and running in time for the start of the 2026 summer holidays.
- New ways to support children with disabilities to attend a holiday food and activity programme.
This programme will prioritise applications for work with school children up to school year 11 and organisations looking to:
- Increase/improve access to holiday food and activity schemes for children with disabilities.
- Increase/improve access to holiday food and activity schemes for children experiencing food poverty.
- Increase the delivery period of their programme to include more days per week and/or more weeks of the school summer holidays.
This programme is pan-London but we will look to fund a geographic spread of projects and projects that operate in areas with identified high levels of deprivation.
Size and duration of grant
Organisations can apply for grants of up to £10,000.
You can begin allocating funding to your project from Monday 29th June 2026 for any preparation work required for delivery.
Projects should begin in line with the start of the 2026 school summer holidays for your borough and be completed by Friday 11th September 2026. This allows some time for wrapping up delivery and monitoring.
Closing date for applications
The closing date for applications is 12 noon on Wednesday 22nd April 2026.
All grant decisions will be communicated by Friday 12th June 2026.
How to apply
We are hosting three online information session where we'll share an overview of the grants programme and London Community Foundation's eligibility criteria, give you an insight into some of the key application form questions and be available to answer your questions. These sessions are being held on the following dates and can be accessed via the link, please only attend one session:
1. Monday 23rd March 1-2pm Information Session Monday 23rd March 1pm
2. Tuesday 24th March 6-7pm Information Session Tuesday 24th March 6pm
3. Thursday 26th March 10-11am Information Session Thursday 26th March 10am
Click on the 'Check eligibility and apply online' button to proceed. Before applying you will be asked to complete our eligibility check to make sure that your organisation is eligible to apply for a grant from this fund.
Once you have completed the eligibility check, and if you are eligible to apply for a grant, you will be directed to the application form to start your full application.
Contact details
If you have any questions or would like to discuss any element of the fund or your application, please contact Leigh Ogden on leigh.ogden@londoncf.org.uk or call us on 020 7582 5117.