Council awards almost 70 children with free bikes

This is part of the council’s award winning Veggie Run initiative that is currently running across nearly all primary and junior schools throughout the borough.

Over a five week period children across Havering were invited to collect Crunch Brunch character badges as part of their healthy school catered lunch, once collected all participating children’s details were entered into a prize draw and a successful girl and boy from all contributing Havering schools were awarded a brand new bike to promote outdoor activity. 

Lisa Schaberg, Head Teacher from St Alban's Catholic Primary School, said: 

“This is a lovely scheme that is making a real difference to the lives of our children and in turn their families.”

What is Veggie Run?

The London Borough of Havering launched Veggie RUN, England’s first council-created app to promote healthy eating to primary and junior school children in April 2018.

The Veggie RUN app was developed in partnership with local Havering children and has been supported by Change4Life and Quorn. It aims to address the rising obesity epidemic in the borough and highlight the health benefits of a healthy school catered lunch.

The app presents the newly created ‘Crunch Bunch’ characters and has been designed to appeal to children aged from 4-11 years old. It is the first of its kind as it aims to teach children to dodge unhealthy foods and earn rewards by collecting fruit and vegetables.

Users are also  able to view their weekly school lunch menus and parents can purchase school meal credit via app links. All Crunch Brunch characters in Veggie Run are used across all new primary and junior school menus in the borough, to ensure children see the direct link between game play and healthy eating. 

The benefit of playing Veggie RUN, is that Havering school children receive unique codes from their school will enable them to compete towards winning sports prizes for themselves and their school each term.