The Christchurch Food Festival Education Trust has benefitted from a massive £3,800 raised by Councillor Nick and Mrs Gillian Geary while he was Mayor. The charity was one of three to be chosen during his time in office.
Mary Reader, President of the Christchurch Food Festival and co-founder of the CFFET said “ I have seen at first hand over many years just how hard Councillor Geary has worked for the young people of this town and we were delighted to be chosen as a recipient of the fundraising for his year of office. During his year he attended on five days to see the projects we were running in our local schools. This additional money is going to allow us to develop more support for our schools and the local community, especially at a time when schools have so many cut backs in finance.”
One new project to benefit was a special cookery day held at the Grange School in Somerford where Twenty-two Year 9 hospitality students cooked alongside Colin Nash, head chef of the Three Tuns at Bransgore. Festival Ambassador TV chef and author Lesley Waters who lives in north Dorset also gave up her time to be there and encourage the students. The day led by Colin enabled the students to develop their skills to another level as they cooked Thai crab soup, a chicken and wild mushroom risotto, and raspberry and white chocolate brulée. Students were later joined by Colin, Lesley and Mary as they ate their dishes for lunch.
Mary went on to say “Sadly this group of students will not be able to take a food course next year, and so we wanted to give them the opportunity to learn new skills and the chance to taste a wider range of foods. They are a delightful group of young people and we all loved working with them. The additional money from Councillor Geary will enable us to do more work with this school. Their food teacher Mrs Sally Rowe really cares for her students’ well-being and has had a lot of success in the past with her students going on to catering college to further their studies.”
For more press information please contact Mary Reader on 01425 837961.