Pupils appeal for vital ingredients for Dundee charity

Each Wednesday afternoon, a group of Senior Years pupils volunteer with Dundee Foodbank, which last year handed out 8,500 food parcels to local people in crisis.

Some weeks the pupils visit the Health & Food Technology department to produce short home cooking demonstration videos, using the contents of a typical food parcel, which are then shown on a TV in the Foodbank to help people using the service make the most of the parcels.

They’ve also come up with some of their own recipes which are fun for children to read and cook with their parents - such as ‘Foot-Bolognese,’ ‘Chilly Chilli’ and ‘Shrek’s Swamp Soup’ - and created corresponding recipe cards which people can take away.

In the past, the pupils have also visited the Foodbank warehouse to help sort and organise the donations which the charity receives. Unfortunately though, recently this hasn’t been possible because there haven’t been enough donations to make the visits worthwhile.

This is especially sad news as Dundee Foodbank has been helping to provide another local charity, Dundee Bairns, with supplies for the breakfast clubs it runs in the city during the school holidays for children who would otherwise go without breakfast when school breakfast clubs are closed.

As a result, the pupil volunteers have organised a school-wide collection in aid of Dundee Foodbank and the fantastic work which it does.

Already parents, pupils and staff have generously donated a huge range of essential items, but with the collection closing on Wednesday 20th March, the youngsters are making an appeal for any final contributions.

Any in date, non-perishable food items and toiletries would be gratefully received, with a particular focus on cereal and long-life milk. Below are listed some suggestions of items which would be hugely appreciated:

Food items:
Cereal
Long life milk cartons
Tinned beans/spaghetti etc
Tinned soup
Pot noodles/instant noodles
Cuppa soups
Instant Coffee
Instant Hot Chocolate
Biscuits

Toiletries:
Soap
Toothbrushes/toothpaste
Deodorant

In the Nursery, donations can be dropped off in the foyer, in the Junior School they can be handed to class teachers and in the Senior School donations can be dropped off at the library.