CHIPPIES are aiming to lift the spirits of their local communities by giving away free food as part of a new project.

The idea is to get people to do a good deed, with the project focussing on children in its first week which begins today.

Once children have done their good deed, whether that be helping with housework or cleaning up litter, they can then get their parents to post about it on the facebook page 'Deeds Everyday' to claim their voucher for a free cone of chips.

Six chippies are on board with the project so far, namely: J Henry's and The Codfather in Hedge End, fish & Chips@27 in Park Gate, Best Fry in West End, Sonny's Traditional Fish & Chips in Fair Oak and Mike's Traditional Fish & Chips in Eastleigh.

Shane Lee, has owned J Henry's Fish and Chips in Hedge End since 1988.

He said: "I like doing things for the local community and giving something back in these difficult times and hopefully this can make a difference.

"Hopefully the chips are a good enough reward to get them doing something.

"With what we've been through this year, something like this can only be good a good thing."

One of the organisers, Fareham based marekting firm Leads Everyday's Jamie Stroulger, hopes that more businesses will get involved with the project in future, that is due to run across different areas of the community up until Christmas.

He said: “Many people are struggling and we wanted to do something to help.

“We’re asking everyone to do one good deed for one good cause and recommend one good friend to do the same.

“Imagine how much positivity it would create if everyone did just one good deed.”

Next weekend, the staff at the Fareham company will be handing out free Fish and Chips to local retirement homes as part of the next stage of their project.

A GoFundMe page has now been created to fund this and staff from the company have already contributed £400 to get off to a good start.

This week however, the free food is completely at the expense of the chippies, that just wanted to do their bit for the community.