Manchester community members raised £20,000 in 36 hours to fund meals for more than 350 Jewish children in need over the December holiday period.

Recipient families will receive daily £5 Tesco vouchers for each child from Monday to Friday. Welfare charity The Fed, which organised the appeal, has been in discussions with the supermarket to increase the value of the vouchers to £6 as a gesture of goodwill.

The Fed’s fundraising director Raphi Bloom said the scheme will benefit 87 children at mainstream state-aided Jewish schools in the area and 275 from schools within the strictly Orthodox community.

Tesco was chosen because of its strong presence in both North and South Manchester and the breadth of its kosher provisions. The Fed is working with the Hershel Weiss Centre, which serves the Charedi community, to distribute recipes for nutritious and inexpensive meals.

Mr Bloom said the Covid crisis had exacerbated “the general poverty existing within the community” and this and other related issues had led to a 58 per cent increase in social work and volunteer support.

“Before, we were supporting one-in-ten Jewish homes in Greater Manchester. Now it is one-in-eight [an estimated 1,500 households]. A lot of people are coming to us for the first time because of the pandemic.

“We are managing because our staff are working incredibly hard.”

Some 100 new volunteers had helped to spread the load, although “because of the restrictions, a lot of the support is by telephone. But we have many people shopping for the lonely and isolated.”

The Fed reports that since March, it has dealt with 781 cases relating to mental health, 1,700-plus calls for help and supported 33 domestic abuse victims, the latter statistic another reflection of the pressures of lockdown, with families largely confined to their homes.

It has also provided 19,000 hours of volunteer assistance and has been supporting 139 carers and 29 Holocaust survivors and refugees.

Mr Bloom said he was “proud and humbled” by the community’s immediate reaction to the appeal for children’s meals, which had also attracted “a generous donation” from Jewish Child’s Day.

“Every time we do such a campaign, the response shows that people believe in the work The Fed does. We are the community’s safety net.”

He was also encouraged by the success of the health and safety measures implemented at the charity’s Heathlands care complex.

“We have been Covid-free for four months.”