World Food Day celebration raises £500

Posted 16 October 2014

Staff and students at Harper Adams University have raised more than £500 for charity by selling homemade goodies at a celebration to mark World Food Day.

World Food Day is an annual event held today, October 16, in honour of the founding of the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations in 1945. This year, the theme is Family Farming: ‘Feeding the world, caring for the earth.’

To contribute, Harper Adams hosted a festival of food – a fair selling homemade treats with the aim of improving public awareness of global hunger, and to raise money for Self Help Africa Shrewsbury and collect donations for Newport and Shropshire food banks.

Stalls sold hot and cold meals and snacks; including Chinese and Indian food, Brazilian sweets, best of British cakes and pastries and freshly pressed apple juice. Self Help Africa Shrewsbury and the Trussell Trust food banks also manned stalls, and the Harper Adams Catering Department shared the work of Fair Trade.

Organiser of the event, Rural Enterprise and Land Management Course Leader, Simon Keeble, said: “Yet again, the support of staff and students has led to us being able to raise vital funds for Self Help Africa and collect donations of food for the Shropshire food banks.

“The event is a great opportunity for people to come and try food from all over the world, whilst learning about the importance of food security and how we can help both locally and globally.

“As a university that celebrates all things related to agriculture, I believe it is important that we are involved with events such as World Food Day and give our support.”

Self Help Africa works in nine African countries supporting rural communities to grow more food and earn a better living.

For more information about World Food Day click here. To find out about Self Help Africa, visit here.