Day one of the school term has shown just how great an impact COVID-19 has had on the economy.
The KidsCan charity says demand for food in schools has almost doubled. And some principals say education is no longer their top priority - making sure all their students have been fed is.
On a cold winter's day there's nothing better than a bowl of hot pumpkin soup - especially if it will be your only meal of the day. But that is the reality for some at Wainuiomata Intermediate School. So, KidsCan has had to step up.
Principal Craig Sharp says they've made sure there's no stigma attached to the lunches provided by KidsCan and says demand has skyrocketed since lockdown.
"There's people who thought their jobs were really secure and lost their jobs so families that normally don't usually struggle have really struggled during this time," he tells Newshub.
"Just the amount of kids there eating it, you know it's making a difference."
Extra volunteers are helping get a record amount of food out to schools.
This term will be KidsCan's busiest ever, distributing more than 200 tonnes of food. That is up 40 percent on term two. It will go out to almost 800 schools and close to 60 early childhood centres.
"It really shows schools are struggling as well as whanau," says KidsCan's Karleen Edmonds.
And for the first time it's not just the low decile schools that need their help.
"We've a lot of families who were in great positions, who had a job but were living week to week. But now that they've lost jobs they need our support which they've never had to do before," Edmonds says.
That sentiment is echoed at Middle School West Auckland.
"Some of them haven't even had dinner and they're sitting in the very first class of the day and you can see that they're shattered," principal Warren Cook says.
Without a decent meal there's no way the students can focus so getting them all fed is Cook's top priority.
"We want the kids to come to school, we want the kids to recognise school as a safe place because we want them to succeed," he says.
The only way to do that at the moment is feed them themselves.
