Over the last couple of weeks the Food and Nutrition Department, Community Action and Development Team have been working very hard developing a new partnership with the Guru Nanak Mission. The Mission is a charity run by the local Sikh Temple, where volunteers prepare, cook and serve nutritious hot meals 3 times a week to up to 70 homeless and vulnerable people in Nottingham City Centre. The Food is cooked at 3 different Gurdwara locations across Nottingham and is then served up on Albert Street outside Marks & Spencer at 7.30pm every Monday, Wednesday and Thursday.
Last Wednesday, Mr Beattie and Mrs Stafford went to cook alongside regular volunteers from The Guru Nanak Mission at The Sri Guru Singh Sabha Gurdwara. The menu for the evening was a healthy, wholesome vegetable soup, chapattis and an amazing cardamom rice pudding, which they can both attest was absolutely delicious. This was an incredibly rewarding but humbling experience, giving them an idea of the scale of the project they had just put themselves and the school forward for.
The Guru Nanak Mission then asked the school to provide the hot meals for approximately 75 people, and we chose to make a Vegetable Tagine from a popular recipe currently served in our Sixth Form Brasserie. We wanted to get as many students and staff involved in the project as possible, and aimed to take responsibility for the full cook on the following Wednesday’s session in Nottingham City Centre.
Moz Lynch, our catering manager, very kindly donated the recipe, ingredients and cooking utensils. Jodie Emerton and Sam Pollard, our catering suppliers, donated all of the fresh vegetables and biodegradable packaging free of charge.
The Year 8 Food Club were then given the challenging task to slice, dice, prepare and cook all the tagines over lunch club and get them ready to casserole later on in the day. The students were amazing – Mrs Stafford would have loved to have kept them with her all afternoon! The tagines were delicious, wholesome, hot and hearty and cooked to perfection. A big thank you to all of the
students in the Year 8 Food Club. At 7pm the tagines were carefully transported in large insulated food containers to Albert Street and served up by teachers and staff from both Nottingham High School and the regular volunteers from Guru Nanak Mission. It was an exceptionally cold night and it certainly made everyone think how lucky they were to be going home to a warm house and evening meal. Special thanks also to Katy for offering to drive the School Estates van, as well as to all of the students who donated a gift-wrapped selection box to distribute with our food on the night.
This has been one of the most worthwhile and rewarding projects that we have had the privilege to be involved with. Both the Food and Nutrition Department and Community Action team are really looking forward to continuing their work and support with The Guru Nanak Project over the continuing cold winter months next term.
A special thank you to all those staff and students who kindly volunteered their time and energy to get this fantastic project up and running.
Please contact Mrs Stafford or Mr Beattie should you want any more information, or visit the Guru Nanak’s Mission Facebook Page.
