In idyllic rural England this summer, as holidaymakers headed to the North Devon coast, the community in Great Torrington was banding together to stop children going hungry.

From free breakfast clubs to food hubs, the historic small town – once at the centre of the English civil war – was determined no child would miss meals during the summer holidays.

“Last month, the foodbank saw one of the busiest Saturdays in years,” says Siobhan Strode, a local teacher, town councillor and Unite Community chair for Devon.

Meanwhile, a food hub at the Castle Hill Centre – where out-of-date grub collected by Fareshare was left in a larder for hungry families – was in constant use.

“Although we don’t count how many families use the food hub, we know it’s well used,” Siobhan, 34, says. “Every loaf of bread we put out is taken by the end of the day.”

This summer, in schools and foodbanks and holiday clubs across Britain, an army of heroes have been keeping children from hunger.

Against a rising tide of poverty, charities and volunteers are expected to have fed around one million kids over the last six weeks, when there have been no free school meals and parents struggle with childcare costs.

As the nation heads back to work next week, it’s clear the damage done to kids by summer hardship is not just to their health.

A recent study by Cardiff University of 103,971 children showed those from poorer backgrounds were more likely to report loneliness as well as hunger during the summer holidays, and were less likely to spend time with friends or engage in physical activities.

Yet this summer, the Department for Education opted only to support holiday hunger projects in 11 “pilot areas”. This meant 81 organisations that bid for Department for Education help, from Birkenhead to Bristol to Barnsley, saw their funding bids rejected.

This article sets out the key findings from the Financial Inclusion Commission’s report. “The welfare cuts from 2010 onwards are starting to bite, which we can see in various indicators – not least the increase in possession orders granted to landlords, from 95,000 in 2010 to more than 120,000 in 2014,” said Karen Rowlingson, professor of social policy at the University. “An increasing number of people are at risk of losing the roof over their heads”. This year’s report has found: Thirty-five per cent of people are still finding it difficult to cope financially or are only just getting by – a slight decrease year-on-year. There has been a dramatic increase in the number of people using food banks, from just over 61,000 in 2010/11 to more than 1 million in 2014/15. The majority of the population (53 per cent) is still reducing its spending, with one in 20 cutting back on basic food items. Means-tested benefits for an out-of-work single person in 2015 only provide 40% of the income they would need for an acceptable standard of living (57% for a single parent with one child or a couple with two children). There were 1.85 million people out of work in the UK at the end of 2014 – close to pre-recession levels. Sixty per cent of households have some form of unsecured credit. Evictions from rented properties have increased, particularly in the social rented sector.

You can download the report ‘The Financial Inclusion Commission’s report, Financial Inclusion: Improving the financial health of the nation’ here