BBCParents using a social supermarket in Coventry have said they would struggle to feed their children without it, with one recipient of free school meals describing the lack of them during summer holidays as “horrendous”.
Claire said regularly going without meals so her children could eat had “become the norm”.
The Grub Hub on Wyken Road has been helping people in the community deal with the cost of living crisis, offering discounted food parcels.
The mum, who has two school-age children with special needs, said the facility was a “lifeline”, adding: “It’s so difficult, I don’t know what we’d do without it”.
Another mum, Precious, explained she was initially embarrassed about using the charity to feed her three children, “but it has become a chance to meet others and share life’s issues”.
She lives with her partner who has a full-time job but, she added: “He carries a lot but it’s not always a light burden to carry”.
“I can’t tell you how much this place helps.”
Alainea Stark is a carer for her nine-year-old daughter and volunteers at the centre.
She said it could be “incredibly daunting” the first time people came but “you get to know other people and it’s a good sense of community”.
Users pay a membership fee in return for discounted weekly groceries.
“When people pay they feel they are contributing,” she added.
Diane Williams, chief executive of Moathouse Community Trust, which runs the Grub Hub, said recent food cost increases had left people “really struggling”.
Over the summer the charity will plans to provide activities and hot lunches for children at its Winston Avenue centre.
