A BRADFORD breakfast club - providing over 100 meals a week to students - has launched a GoFundMe page to cover short-term costs.

Café South, based at the Buttershaw Youth Centre, has been running its breakfast club for the past 16 weeks and has seen a 400 per cent increase in the number of attendees.

The breakfast club is open to all secondary school children in the area, so they can go to school on a full stomach and work hard.

The initiative set up by Saif Khan of Saif Spaces has gained momentum and now as the funding runs out, the café is appealing to the community for help.

He said: “When we first started it was 20 to 25 breakfasts a week and now, we’re providing over 100 breakfasts a week.

“We’re seeing over 25 secondary school students every day and we only have funding for about five more weeks.

“This is a safe space for them to get together with their friends before school, talk, play football or pool, get something to eat, and then get to school on time.”

The breakfast club masks the issue of hunger, by presenting a front for young people, that they’re coming for the social aspect, but are getting fed whilst they are there.

Breakfast options include toast, scrambled eggs, hashbrowns, beans, and cereals; as a treat once a week there’s hot chocolate with whipped cream and marshmallows on offer.

Mr Khan added: “This is more than just breakfast, this takes the stress off parents as well as the police force because if we didn’t have the breakfast club, they could be getting into low-level anti-social behaviour.

“We’ve seen a 400 per cent increase in attendance and it creates that split in the morning, before it was get up and go to school, now it’s get up, see your friends at breakfast club and then go to school.”

The café is looking for any kinds of donations including orange juice, cereals, milk and bread but money can be donated to the GoFundMe page which will help keep the initiative going.

Local businesses are also being asked to get involved and help keep the café going.

Mr Khan said: “None of this would have been possible without Michelle Hammond who makes the breakfast and is the backbone of Café South.

“We’d love it, if anyone could help us out while we try to secure some funding to keep this café going.”