Student chefs support local charity during festive period

Wirral Met College’s student chefs are to prepare and cook meals to support a local charity, ‘Hope for the Hungry’, in the run-up to Christmas.

The college has teamed up with Hope for the Hungry to provide the homeless and hungry in Wirral with 450 meals in the lead up to Christmas.

Student chefs from the College will prepare 150 individual meals each week from the beginning of December. The meals will include cottage pie, chicken cacciatore, Scouse, Brazilian pork stew with dumplings, along with a range of vegetarian dishes including roast vegetable Goan curry. The young chefs will also be creating 150 Christmas goodie bags containing a mince pie, gingerbread figure, and homemade fudge, helping local people in need enjoy some of the traditional festivities.

The Community Interest Company (CIC) was set up by local couple Stef and Chris Parsons. They were inspired to action after handing out food to rough sleepers on Boxing Day in 2016. Stef Parsons, Director of Hope for the Hungry (Birkenhead) CIC said: “Hope for the Hungry are thrilled to be working alongside Wirral Met College and its students during November and December of 2020. As a team, we focus on feeding the homeless and hungry of the Wirral and aim to reduce food poverty in families, both during and outside of school term times. Wirral Met College are offering their students a fantastic opportunity to be able to provide the less fortunate in the area with a delicious, home-made meal, which we know will be greatly appreciated by those receiving them.”

A spokesperson for the college said. “This is an excellent experience for students who will be preparing the food, managing portion control, careful packaging of the dishes and correctly labelling each container with details of ingredients and instructions on how to safely store and reheat the meals.”

Wirral Met’s art, design and media students are also supporting this initiative by producing a festive themed card which will be added to the charity’s Christmas care gift and handed out to those in need.

Sue Higginson, Principal of Wirral Met College, added: “Our hearts go out to people struggling and, more than anything, I hope this makes a difference for them. I’m so proud that our staff and students are dedicated to helping those in need. We are delighted to support Hope for the Hungry in their fantastic charitable work and our sincere thanks also go to local supermarkets Asda [pictured as main story image] in Bromborough and Arrowe Park, Tesco in Heswall and Aldi in Heswall, for their generous donations of ingredients to support this initiative.“