Christmas will have an extra helping of magic for a group of orphans in Bulgaria this year, thanks to the support of catering students at North Hertfordshire College. The 43 Hertfordshire students have, at their own initiative, successfully set out to collect gifts for every one of the 69 residents in the Novo Selo orphanage. The gifts will be personalised by name and presented on Christmas day.
The initiative was prompted by students recognising the campaign of Mick Cooper, previously head of catering at City College Norwich. Mick is now located in Bulgaria and is working with a national charity to provide disadvantaged children and young people at the orphanage with training and skills that will help to secure their future.
As part of this project Mick Cooper intends to establish a catering and restaurant school: it was learning about this objective that prompted the NHC students’ resolve to become practically involved.
Kevin Buck, Advanced Learning Practitioner of NHC, heard about Mick’s project recently during conversations about a new Diploma development and passed the news to his students.
As a result, a Santa’s Grotto of individual Christmas box gifts, ranging from cosmetics and toys to stationery and sports gear were handed over to Mick Cooper on 6th December for onward passage to Bulgaria for Christmas Day.
Handing over the Christmas boxes on behalf of NHC, Kevin Buck said: “Everyone at NHC wholeheartedly supports the work Mick Cooper is doing in Bulgaria, and we all hope and pray that this splendid initiative by our first and second year catering students will make an enormous difference to festive celebrations at Novo Selo.”
The NHC catering students were unanimous in their positive response to this special Christmas initiative, with comments including:
“This has made us look beyond our own community, and encouraged us to think about wider issues.”
“We came to NHC thinking that we would just learn about catering, but this project has also helped us to learn about society, and made us proud to have been able to help others.”