Did you know that 3.9 million children live in income poverty in the UK* and 32% of children regularly miss breakfast**?

With these challenging facts in mind, Abra-ca-Debora pancakes are proud to be able to donate 6,000 pancakes to the charity, Magic Breakfast, for Pancake Day, 12^th February, so that children in some of the UK’s most deprived areas get the chance to enjoy a delicious pancake, to celebrate the special event.  “Debora” from Abra-ca-Debora will be helping with the distribution of pancakes to a school in Tower Hamlets on Pancake Day to add a little magic to the proceedings.

Jan Boers of Abra-ca-Debora says “We could not think of a more deserving charity with whom we wanted to support on Pancake Day. Pancakes are filling and fun and children love their versatility – you can flip them, fill them and enjoy them”.

Magic Breakfast founder, Carmel McConnell says “Magic Breakfast is excited to team up with Abra-ca-Debora to celebrate Pancake Day, with this special treat.  We want to ensure children have the best start to the day in a warm and safe environment. We want to raise awareness of the positive impact of breakfast clubs, with 94% of our partner schools reporting children attending have improved social relationships and 93% have seen improved energy and concentration in lessons.

As Magic Breakfast , the charity which every school day provides free, nutritious breakfast food to over 6,500 children in 220 primary schools, has discovered “a  hungry child is more likely to be restless, unhappy, lethargic, distracted or disruptive in lessons” and giving children a healthy breakfast at the beginning of the day provides them with the right “fuel for learning”.

www.abra-ca-debora.co.uk

The Big Give Christmas Challenge is an exciting way for our supporters to make a Christmas donation to us which can then be matched by the Big Give sponsors, doubling your donation!*

Through our breakfast clubs, we provide 6000 children across 205 primary schools with the essential fuel they need to start each day positively. With your help, we aim to reach 250 primary schools by the end of January 2013 feeding approximately a further 1500 children each day.

Donate at 10am on the 6th, 7th and 8th of December to be in with the best chance of having your DONATION DOUBLED.

Donating is quick and easy; simply click here to visit our Big Give Project Page and see your donation double!

A donation of just £3.50 provides a hungry school child with a nutritious breakfast for a month. During the Big Give Christmas Challenge this donation will be matched, so you can provide two children with a healthy breakfast at no extra cost to yourself.

Your generosity helps us to ensure no child arrives at school too hungry to learn. Give intelligently through the Big Give this December to make your donation go further.

Last year, over 400 charities participated in the Big Give's Christmas Challenge raising over £12million from 19,7000 individual donations that were matched using a combination of funds raised by the participating charities and the Big Givers.

For more information on the Big Give 2012 and find out how you can help us take on this challenge, visit the Big Give website.

Thank you for your support.

*Limited sponsor match funds are released each day during the challenge, so make sure you donate early for the best chance of doubling your donation to Magic Breakfast.

Teachers at a school in Bristol have been forced to pay for breakfast clubs out of their own pockets. For the past nine years, the school has been supported by a local charity which unfortunately had to pull the funding at the start of the new term as they have been hit hard by the recession and recently went into liquidation.

A learning facilitator at the school said it "wasn't fair" that they were having to pay for the breakfasts but said they would not leave the children hungry as “hunger and thirst is a very big trigger for negative behaviour.”

Magic Breakfast visited the school in Bristol to witness the situation, with the intention to provide support to the school where teachers are subsidising the 130 breakfast meals each day as it is “really important that a child has a good start to the day.”

Read the full BBC report here

An increasing number of primary school breakfast clubs are being forced to close because of budget cuts, despite evidence of increasing demand. A report by The Observer highlighted the importance of breakfast clubs in improving education outcomes and the crucial work of Magic Breakfast putting it in stark contrast to the recent closures.

At the start of the new academic year, the cuts risk leaving many vulnerable children in danger of going to school hungry and unable to concentrate in lessons. In a recent survey from the Guardian Teacher Network, 83% of teachers said they were seeing pupils who were coming to school hungry.

In Observer Food Monthly, Carmel McConnell, Magic Breakfast founder, describes the situation as "pure social failure". "We used to have 20 or 30 schools on our waiting list. Now we have 130," she says. "The forms they fill in would make you weep: children coming into school listless because they're hungry. We're also seeing more midweek hunger as pay packets and benefits run out at home."

The report estimates that there have been as many as 20,000 breakfast clubs nationwide, but with many now seeing their funding cut.

Magic Breakfast supported school, Keyworth Primary in Kennington, has seen a “massive increase” in the number of children coming in for the breakfast club. When the pupils were asked why they come to the breakfast club as opposed to eating breakfast at home, one child responded “because there's no food." This is the harsh reality caused by changes in benefit rules and a simple lack of hard cash.

Click here to read the full report