A 47-year-old hero headteacher walks more than five miles daily to deliver food to children who use free school meals and come from poor families.

When the UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced that all schools across the country would close on March 20th, Zane Powles, an assistant headteacher who works at Western Primary School in Grimsby, Lincolnshire, decided to start handing out 75 meals every day to the children whose parents can’t afford them quality food.

It takes him more than two hours to make his rounds every day, knocking on the children’s doors and leaving the package of the meal right in front of their doors. Before leaving, he waits at a safe distance to make sure they will pick it up.

Zane says he prefers to deliver the lunches on foot, rather than using his car or bike because in that way it wouldn’t be worth doing it.

Also, he added that he is happy to have a chance to say hi to the kids and their parents, despite the social distancing.
In the beginning, most children thought it’s really weird to see their school teacher knocking on their doors with bin bags full of lunches, but now it has become completely normal.

He believes everyone should contribute to the society by doing something beneficial, especially now, when the whole country is going through this crisis, so, his way to contribute is to help the most vulnerable children.

His main purpose is to make sure all vulnerable children get at least one decent meal each day. Hand-delivering children’s meals is much better than parents coming to school because it’s the only way to reduce the risk of spreading the virus.

Moreover, this hero teacher delivers extra homework to the children whose parents have asked him for it. This will keep them occupied while staying at home so that their parents can also work from home without being interrupted.

Zane’s selfless actions have been praised by a lot of people who have started to come out of their houses just to congratulate him.

However, he said this applause makes him feel both overwhelmed and embarrassed because it’s a team effort. Other teachers help him to deliver the rest of the meals to children who live further away.

In 2019, Zane won the Inspirational Primary School Teacher Award after being nominated by a parent as a result of challenging primary school students in the school’s behavior unit.

Source/photos:  Unilad