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Waddesdon to Support Local Schoolkids

 

Despite cultural organisations around the world closing their doors as a precaution to reduce the spread of coronavirus, the catering team at Waddesdon is doing its best to ensure local pupils don’t go hungry, and Easter eggs don’t go to waste.

Around 1.3 million children in England currently benefit from a free school lunch, and school closures are therefore expected to have a particularly severe impact on young people usually in receipt of free school meals.

Local organisation Aspire, which provides alternative education provision and support for secondary age pupils in Buckinghamshire, are acutely aware of this. Chefs from Waddesdon Manor and the Five Arrows have therefore turned their hand to supplying breakfast and a hot lunch for their students on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.

Waddesdon’s head chef, Ben Thurkettle, said, ‘We’re very pleased the produce we have in stock for upcoming weddings and Waddesdon’s catering outlets is not going to waste, but is making sure vulnerable local children still get a hot meal’.

Once existing supplies run out the Rothschild Foundation, a grant-making charity based at Waddesdon, will provide funding to continue the scheme.

To minimise risk and to comply with social distancing, there are fewer chefs in the Waddesdon kitchens. Once the food is prepared, it is transferred to Aspire’s staff waiting outside, who transport the meals to individual students while practising social distancing.

Additionally, 900 chocolate eggs that were supplied to Waddesdon as prizes for Easter trails have been delivered to Aylesbury Food Bank. Ten boxes were also given to the John Radcliffe hospital in Oxford, and the same number were taken to Stoke Mandeville hospital’s children’s ward.

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Mark Bibby Jackson

Mark Bibby Jackson

Before setting up Travel Begins at 40, Mark was the publisher of AsiaLIFE Cambodia and a freelance travel writer. When he is not packing and unpacking his travelling bag, Mark writes novels, including To Cook A Spider and Peppered Justice. He loves walking, eating, tasting beer, isolation and arthouse movies, as well as talking to strangers on planes, buses and trains whenever possible. Most at home when not at home. Mark is a member and director of communications of the British Guild of Travel Writers (BGTW).

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