Like most people, I’m really looking forward to the Christmas break. It’s been a very busy period so a bit of down time to spend with family and friends will be really welcome. Our students and staff have organised a number of events leading up to Christmas – a lot of them fundraising for various charities. These have been a great success and really good fun – stalls, Santa, carol singing, activities, musical performances – even a visit from some live reindeer. Some staff also organised a children’s Christmas party for staff families.
But, even though it has been lovely, there’s a small nagging voice at the back of my head saying, "What about our students who rely on the free breakfast and lunch offer? How are they going to cope when the college is closed for two weeks?"
Quick read: Colleges run food banks to tackle student poverty
Background: An open letter to teachers from a parent in poverty
In depth: Schools now a 'fourth emergency service' for poor pupils
College tackling food poverty
Ayrshire College, supported by the Ayrshire College Foundation, has run a lunch soup initiative for a while. And having found that some students were coming in at 10am asking if lunch "was ready yet", we have also put on an offer of a breakfast service of porridge, which is now available to all students on a daily basis.
As we approach this holiday period, we are mindful that this is the longest period in the year that our students have no access to the support services that the college offers, including that of a hot meal. For too many of our students, this holiday will represent not much more than a number of cold days with very little to nourish.
Tackling food poverty in our community is one of four key themes in the college’s Tackling Child Poverty Strategy. Recent statistics suggest that one in three children in parts of Ayrshire – our students and their families – experiences food poverty.
Elaine Hutton, our curriculum director responsible for hospitality (among other things), is the driving force behind these free food offer initiatives and in a conversation, we discovered that we shared the same concern about students during the Christmas shutdown as did a number of her team. So we decided to see if we could actually do something to support our students over the holiday period – and the idea to open the college for a day during the holiday was born. So on the 30 December, we will be open to our students.
Elaine has just run with this – speaking to catering and estates staff, who came on board really quickly, then putting the idea out to staff more widely. She offered three ways in which staff could get involved:
- Make a cash donation that will support the purchase of essential food items to go into food bags that will be distributed on the day.
- Volunteer, on the day, to help with the service of a hot meal and tidying up.
- Donate a £5 Greggs food voucher that can be used over the holidays to purchase fresh hot food
To date, we have had 48 members of staff volunteer to come in on 30 December, along with really generous cash and voucher donations. Elaine has organised different teams to ensure that we have appropriate health and safety cover as well as organising the lunch, and I am truly grateful to her for her thoughtfulness and drive in pulling this together.
And it isn’t just our staff. Careers and routes to careers classes took part in the Supported Learning Christmas Fayre and raised £160 across their three stalls. They decided that they would like to donate £100 to the Ayrshire College food poverty initiative and to use the other £60 to buy goods that will be donated to the East Ayrshire Foodbank.
We don’t know yet what kind of response we will get on 30 December from students – although some groups have already said they will share the message and come in to support fellow students.
I genuinely don’t know if there are other colleges opening over the Christmas period but, in the 10 months I’ve been at Ayrshire College I’ve discovered it is a special place, with some really special people – who know that students need support, even over Christmas.
Carol Turnbull is principal and chief executive of Ayrshire College
