3 great student stories

LANA has never cooked anything before our course, and after 3 lessons she’s teaching a disabled student how to chop an onion. She is having a dinner party for 6 people tonight, and her mother is astonished.
PERRY is fairly severely disabled and we got this message from his mother after the lesson:
“He has taken such an interest in cooking. We will be cooking the recipes tomorrow. I still can’t believe when he went shopping the other day with June, his other carer he came back with broccoli, garlic, an onion and pasta and then with June they cooked me dinner for when I got home from work. He’s normally only interested in the chocolate counter. So thank you. It’s giving him a healthy outlook on food.”
In addition we heard a story from an ex-student yesterday (who is now a volunteer) who took on the “mobile phone challenge”. We sometimes tell students that they will save enough money for a new iphone in a year (which obviously also helps with debt levels etc.). This student put all the money she saved each week on food into a pot. By the end of the year she bought her son a new smartphone for Christmas.
We have 77 volunteers now, we know them all personally and they have all worked with us within the last 2-3 months. It’s a key strand of work for us and it’s great to see the progression of our students.