Portsmouth primary school feeds more than 200 people with community Christmas lunch

Beacon View Primary Academy in Allaway Avenue hosted a Christmas lunch for their neighbours, with food and volunteers generously donated by the surrounding community.

More than 200 people were fed yesterday with people both young and old getting into the Christmas spirit. The event was the brainchild of school principal Sally Hodgson, who took the job last year.

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She said: ‘It went really well – we are so pleased with how everything turned out. It was great to see so many people, from such a wide age range, enjoying themselves together.

‘We had more than 200 people turn up, plus all the volunteers who had given up their time like staff, parents and even pupils.

‘Everyone pitched in to make this happen – it was a real community effort and it’s gone down so well with everyone.’

The idea came about after the principal had a meeting with Portsmouth City Council member, Councillor Asghar Shah, where the pair came up with a plan to host a community lunch this Christmas.

Organisations such as Southern Co-op and Caterlink stepped in to provide the food, with everything being donated and enough for some food to be left over at the end – which will also be put to good use.

Mrs Hodgson said: ‘It does feel good to help out others like this. We always talk to the children here in school about kindness and how to be kind, which is all very well and good but showing it in action is so important to us.

‘This sort of thing is really great for the pupils – to see that Christmas is about so much more than just buying one another expensive gifts. One lady who turned up told us this was probably going to be the only time she saw people over the Christmas period, and that seemed to really hit home for some people.

‘With how things have turned out, I think it’s almost certain we’ll be doing this again next year.’