But a group of neighbourhood children gave her hope and opened her eyes to the desperate poverty and suffering of others around her.

HUNGRY children are fed at the Sunbeam Club. On Tuesday nights youngsters – for whom dinner can mean a sachet of tomato sauce topped up with hot water to make 'soup' or a cheap packet of biscuits – are invited to feast on a warm, home cooked meal.

Every week Maureen, 54, and her band of friendly volunteers provide a haven for up to 50 children, not in a Third World country, but in the Greenhills area of East Kilbride.

She said: "It is only when you look for it that you realise the scale of poverty. It is so widespread and it is happening all around us."

Maureen said her decision to reach out to these children was not a conscious one.

After the death of her son PJ, who was killed in April 2011, she hit rock bottom.

Her son, a trainee chef, was attacked outside a block of flats in the town and suffered fatal knife wounds. No-one has been convicted of his killing.

The news of his death shattered his family.

Maureen said: "I wanted to die. I asked to die. I was sitting in my house, calmly, just waiting to go.

"A group of kids came to the door and I didn't answer it, but they came back.

"They were shouting through the letter box, 'We know you're in there, we're not going away'.

"Eventually, after a few days, I opened the door and this wee lassie stood on the doorstep with her hand on her hip. She looked and me and said, 'Are you still greetin'?'"

The children, aged six to 14, continued to visit Maureen every day and talked about her son, helping her to cope with his death. She added: "I was living off cigarettes and coffee, so I had nothing in the house to give them. They forced me to go shopping and I started eating again."

The grieving mum was pulled from the depths of despair and her eyes were opened to the desperate need around her.

Maureen, who had experienced living in poverty and had turned to the Jeely Piece Club in Castlemilk when PJ and her daughter Jennifer, now 24, were children, got to know the youngsters, who told her they had nowhere to go at night.

So she started a youth club in Greenhills Community Centre on a Friday night and, on the first week, 180 children came.

Maureen soon realised many were going without food and decided to start the Sunbeam Club. Word spread among the youngsters and soon scores were turning up for dinner.

The club is now run by 12 volunteers and dedicated cook Aileen Palmieri spends days in her kitchen every week making the food.

Maureen said: "These children are hungry – and they are just around the corner.

"When you start looking into it is really alarming.

"The kids are not going home after school – I don't know if this is because they don't want to, for some reason.

"Some are going to Iceland and buying biscuits or boxes of Cornettos for dinner and eating them all.

"I have also heard of kids taking packets of sauce and pouring water into them to make their own version of tomato soup.

"There was a wee boy who came in a few weeks ago and we were sure he was suffering from hypothermia. It was night and he was still in his school uniform, but it was soaked through.

"We tried to dry him off and when we took his shoes and socks off his feet were blue."

The volunteers feared they may have to take the boy, thought to be about 10, to hospital but they managed to warm him up.

Although these stories are shocking, Maureen works hard to ensure the children are not singled out.

She said: "Everyone gets fed – there is no dinner ticket or stigma about it. We are trying to ensure these kids are not isolated.

"We get people who range in age from babies in prams to kids in primary school and teenagers."

The Sunbeam Club depends on donations and one businessman has given Maureen enough cash to feed the children for a year.

Tom Sime, director of Exchange Communications in Kirkintilloch, whom Maureen described as her "guardian angel" donated £2600 after hearing about the plight of the children.

Mr Sime said: "Meeting Maureen highlighted there are starving children in Scotland, under our noses, and we felt compelled to help.

"These kids are not in the Third World, they live in towns and cities in Scotland, a country we are all rightly proud, of and I would ask the Scottish business community to help the volunteers like Maureen with funding to drive starvation out of Scotland."

Maureen was also recently invited to speak at the British Council of Shopping Centres annual dinner, where she collected a further £6000 in donations. She has also been promised further financial help from Radio Clyde's Cash For Kids.

She said: "I would like to thank Tom and Michael Green and Gerrie Renucci, of the British Council of Shopping Centres, for their kind donations, as well as Cash For Kids and all our dedicated volunteers.

"I can't wait to ask the kids how we should spend the money."

Maureen added: "I feel like these children saved my life and it is my turn to help them.

"We help in practical terms by giving them food and a place to go, away from the alcohol and drugs on the streets, but also by being positive role models.

"These children know what happened to my son and I am showing them you do not need to seek revenge.

"They see you can continue to live your life in a positive way and honour the person who died.

"PJ's death has caused so much devastation – I will not allow it to destroy anything else."

linzi.watson@eveningtimes.co.uk