FEAST: Free holiday activities
02 Jul 2025
A notice from FEAST:
Feast Vouchers for the Summer are now live:
https://northyorkshiretogether.co.uk/feast/?utm_source=northallertonmencap&utm_medium=website&utm_campaign=summer
https://northyorkshiretogether.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/FEAST-Summer-25-Activities-List.pdf
I have a few reminders below:
Transport
- As usual, participants can request funded transport on by filling in our transport request form. The closing date for this is 13th August.
Waiting Lists
Please advise your clients to join waiting lists.
- Just because an activity has a waiting list, doesn’t mean it’s full
- We have advised that our activity providers have waiting lists, so that spaces can be filled more easily if somebody cancels. We strongly advise that you join waiting lists of the activities you would like to attend, as we often get cancellations and changes in the run up to the holidays, when plans change.
Eligibility
- Eligibility for free FEAST places has not changed, but the way we talk about it has.
- We want to make it even clearer that FEAST is primarily aimed at children and young people who receive benefits-related free school meals. So we’ll be using that language across all our communications.
- Below, I have pasted the eligibility criteria from our website:
Who is automatically eligible for a free FEAST place?
Children and young people receiving benefits-related free school meals are automatically eligible for free places at FEAST activities.
All children and young people from reception to year 11 (inclusive) who receive benefits-related free school meals are eligible for FEAST.
Schools can also make a small number of additional children eligible by exception if they face significant financial and/or other disadvantage (see below).
Can anyone else be made eligible for free FEAST places?
As defined by the Department for Education, FEAST is primarily for children and young people who receive benefits-related free school meals.
However, schools can also make a small number of additional children and young people eligible by exception if they face significant financial and/or other disadvantage.
There are limits on how many children/young people can be made eligible by exception, to ensure that the focus of the programme remains on the Department for Education’s key audience: those on benefits-related free school meals.
If you believe your child should be made eligible for FEAST, please contact their school to request this. Individual schools have been given the responsibility to make additional children eligible by exception.
Schools are not required to automatically issue vouchers to ‘eligible by exception’ children/young people who have received vouchers historically.
HolidayActivities ‘Basket’
- When booking, parents will be able to add activities to a ‘basket’ before booking them, meaning that they will receive one email per ‘check out’, rather than one per activity. This should hopefully clear up confusion with lots of email confirmations.
- You can only do this for each child individually
