Owners of two cafes in Stockton are helping ease stress on struggling families by giving away free lunches to children on a Friday during the summer holidays.

Dave and Louise Eden have two cafes - Top Class Lunchbox on Yarm Lane and Top Class Bistro on Ramsgate - and between 11am and noon every Friday for the rest of the summer holidays will be handing out free lunch picnic bags for children under 10.

The aim is to take some pressure off struggling families who usually rely on free school meals.

Each picnic bag contains a sandwich of either; cheese, tuna or egg, a bag of crisps, a cup drink and a chocolate bar/biscuit.

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Children must be accompanied by a responsible adult to get the free picnic bag.

Mr Eden said: “Our friends at Silver Cod in Norton have started doing free sausage and chips for kids on a Monday during the holidays and my wife and I sat down and had a thought about what we could do from the cafes.

“We’re pretty quiet on a Monday so we thought we should do it and we also thought it’d be nice to give back to the community”

Last Friday (July 29) was when the couple launched their idea and they gave out approximately 20 picnic bags from both cafes collectively.

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The husband-and-wife duo was actually featured on Gary Phillipson’s BBC Radio Tees show last Friday as well in order to reach as many people, and therefore help as many struggling families as possible.

“Everyone’s struggling at the moment so we’re trying to do what we can for the community and hopefully we can help people,” Dave continued: “The reception from the parents has been brilliant and said how nice it is that we're doing this and the kids have been really nice too.

“We’d definitely consider doing something like this again in half term if people in Stockton want it.”

Mr and Mrs Eden took over Top Class Bistro in October 2021 and they have been running Top Class Lunchbox for 18 months.

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