Each school holiday for the past two years we have donated vouchers to the Youth Commission in Guernsey. The vouchers provide children attending Playscheme with the opportunity to have a healthy snack during the day.

Playscheme is a fun yet rewarding environment for children to grow and learn new skills every day of their school holiday. It is open to children of primary school age and is based at the LOC Youth Centre.

How have the Youth Commission made the most of the vouchers this year?

Emma Cusack, the Youth Worker who heads up this service said:

“The Youth Commission’s summer holiday provision, Playscheme, gives primary aged children the opportunity to learn new skills, meet new people and have fun. We are very grateful for the Co-op’s generosity in providing vouchers so the children can have fresh, healthy snacks in the morning.”

At the Co-op, we’re delighted that the vouchers are allowing the children to have some fruit or veg every day, and helping them to learn more about different foods.

“This year we purchased a range of fruits which some young people have never tried before, such as nectarines and plums. We recently made some fruit kebabs.”

The vouchers also enabled the Youth Commission to purchase foods form around the world, so that the children could experience foods they may not have tasted before.

“The groups made a delicious rice dish from Bangladesh and they baked shortbread whilst learning about Scottish traditions.”

We are really pleased to have this link with the Youth Commission and would love to try one of their shortbread biscuits one day – they look delicious!

4 other ways we’re encouraging healthy habits

We are passionate about healthy eating and encouraging children from an early age to gain a greater understanding of the importance of having healthy habits. Some of the other ways we’re doing this are:

1. Our Goodness Gang garden campaign in 2017, which we launched in Guernsey and Jersey primary schools to encourage children to ‘grow their own’ and try something new.

2. Using our traffic light labelling system to help customers make healthier choices whilst shopping in our stores. 

3. Highlighting locally grown products to enable customers to make environmental shopping choices. 

4. Offering free fruit for kids to eat while their parents are shopping in Grand Marché stores.