Catering staff serve up meals for local community with Moray charity
School catering staff volunteer with Moray Food Plus to help vulnerable amid the pandemic
Moray school catering staff have been volunteering in kitchens to help feed the local community.
From Monday this week, eight catering assistants are volunteering to work in the kitchen at Lhanbryde Community Centre. Supporting Moray Food Plus, they are helping to feed vulnerable local residents, with 200 meals made and delivered each week.
Catering assistants are volunteering three days a week, on a rota basis, getting involved with everything from the prepping of food to packaging and labeling. Then, the packaged meals are collected and distributed by Moray Council’s Community Justice team to residents in Buckie, Lossiemouth, Aberlour and Lhanbryde.
Project Manager for Moray Food Plus, Mairi McCallum, said: “We are delighted that Moray Council school catering staff are joining our team of volunteers, bringing their skills and knowledge to help in the preparation of meals for the Moray community. This will help us deal with the increase in demand and ensure more people are supported.”
Speaking to MFR News, Moray Council’s Catering Manager, Elaine McRae, said many are making meals with whatever the charity receives in the way of raw materials:
"With food recovery, it's often just before the items go out of date at the supermarket, so I take my hat off to them with coming up with the meals - they often won't know what they're getting until that morning"
"The volunteers are able to just go in and help, and because they don't need much direction, the person cooking can just concentrate on that while the catering staff work on prepping"
"They're providing an excellent service and we're really happy to help. They're all well-trained and as Moray residents themselves, the catering staff are happy to do their bit"