Distribution of free food support vouchers to families who receive benefit related free school meals
Distribution of free food support vouchers to families who receive benefit related free school meals
We are writing to you regarding the forthcoming distribution of the free food support vouchers provided by the county council and to provide details about other emergency financial support available. The vouchers are available to families who are eligible for benefit related free school meals. One voucher is provided to every eligible child. Derbyshire County Council intend to start to distribute the vouchers to families from Tuesday 8 February 2022 and expect the process to be completed by Friday 11th February.
After a careful review of the number of families eligible for the scheme, the value of each voucher will be £80. The vouchers will be sent out by email or text. Emails will be sent out by our voucher provider, Huggg LTD and will be sent from the address: hello@huggg.me The emails will look like this: www.derbyshire.gov.uk Vouchers sent by text will be sent from the Council’s ‘email to text’ system and will show as being sent from Derbyshire County Council. The text messages will include a link to download the voucher from the Hugggs website. If you do not receive a voucher by the Tuesday 15 February 2022, please complete the online enquiry form (which will be available on the page from Tuesday 8 February) at www.derbyshire.gov.uk/householdsupportfund
Household Support Fund
Information about how you can apply for a grant from the Household Support Fund is available at: www.derbyshire.gov.uk/householdsupportfund.
Applications via this route are taken over the phone and, due to very high demand, callers may have to wait a considerable amount of time to get through or to receive a call back. Families do not have to be eligible for benefit related free school meals to access a Household Support Fund grant, as we recognise there may be families who are not eligible but who may be struggling financially due to being on a low income. Please note that eligibility for the free food vouchers does not prevent a family from applying for a grant payment from the Household Support Fund before the end of March 2022, when the fund closes. However, during the week Monday 7 February to Friday 11 February only, when the free food vouchers are distributed, we will be unable approve any further grants to eligible households.