Pupils encouraged to eat more fruit and vegetables

Date: 10/11/2011

Three days down and two to go as we arrive at the award winning Easingwold School to learn more about 5-a-day and the work of Mary's Meals.  Bob Davies is the school catering manager at the school, he works for North Yorkshire County Caterers and has just been named as Secondary School Caterer of the Year by EDUcatering Magazine.  His award was represented at a school assembly by Alan Dewberry, proprietor and publisher of EDUcatering Magazine.

There were two assemblies and during these James Kelly from Mary's Meals talked about their work.  The charity provides a daily meal at school to chronically poor children that are attracted to the classroom where, through education, they can escape poverty and gain a better future for themselves and their community.  Tony Begley, Education Co-ordinator for Mary's Meals, said, "During NSMW we hope to give our young people an insight into the lives of the children fed by Mary's Meals, so that they can learn how fortunate they are to have access to good food, particularly, fresh fruit and vegetables.  This is so important for a healthy and balanced diet."

There was a lot going on at the school today.  After the assembly the students tried the nutritious porridge that Mary's Meals feeds to more than half a million children in sixteen countries around the world every day, including Malawi, Haiti and Liberia.  Mary's Meals has recently been delivering 200 tonnes of emergency food aid to famine hit Somalia as part of its response to the East Africa crisis.

Did you know that in 2009 the UK spent £799 million on ice cream?  This would feed the equivalent of 129 million children for a year

During the morning Bob Davies had set up a fantastic display of fresh fruit and vegetables to promote the importance of having your five-a-day.  And at lunchtime Bob had organised buckets on each of the tills so that students could drop in any change that they were happy to donate Mary's Meals.  Enough money was raised in this way to feed about 900 children.  On top of this the school is making a donation for each meal served today.

Mrs Carey Chidwick, Head Teacher, said, "I was delighted to welcome the NSMW Tour to Easingwold School as it gave our students a great opportunity for them to listen to someone working closely with issues facing other parts of the world.  We are fortunate that we are able to provide good nutritious meals and we focus on driving the messages about healthy eating and giving our students the very best start in life."

During the morning Nicola Howard, Business Development Manager from ParentPay, presented a cheque for £688 to James Kelly from Mary's Meals.  This was 15p for every parent that had paid online using ParentPay on Monday for a school meal in North Yorkshire County Council.

So now it is four down and one day to go.  It is an early start on Friday morning as The NSMW Tour sets off for Manchester.