Community soup lunch in support of Horsham charity’s campaign

Community and Enrichment Manager, Laura Ward, said “We were delighted to once again support this fantastic campaign. We do a lot of work with older people through our Community Ambassadors programme, so it was fantastic to be able to raise money towards Age UK services that directly support older people in our local area.”

As well as a non-uniform day, where everyone was encouraged to ‘Wear it Woolly’, the school also put on a free community soup lunch. People from the Horsham area were invited to come along for a warming bowl of home-made soup, enjoy some company and listen to the fantastic musical talent of the Forest ‘buskers’ – Oliver Whorwood, Louis Timperley, Joshua Cooper and Nick Hoad.

Earlier in the week pupils had competed in the ‘Great Forest Soup-Off’ competition to decide which two would be served at the lunch. Oliver Peate’s delicious tomato, lentil and vegetable, and Alex Bishop’s lovely leek and potato soup, were chosen served by the Yr 7 and 8 Community Ambassadors.

“It was really fun” said Yr 7 Ambassador Sam “we got to serve lunch to the visitors and to sit and chat with them afterwards.”

Forest School’s catering company, Sodexo, also supported the campaign with their staff wearing woolly hats all week and a donation of 50p for every chocolate twist sold last week.

Laura Ward added “Sodexo have donated a fantastic £200 from the sale of the twists. With this, the non-uniform money and donations from the soup lunch we hope to have raised close to £1000 for the campaign which is fantastic. It was a great whole school event with everyone getting into the spirit of it and raising money to support a great cause.”

Report and pictures contributed by The Forest School.