Exeter CS Cooks for the Community

Exeter Cathedral School and their catering partners, Thomas Franks, are providing breakfast to neighbour and local charity, St Petrock’s. Supporting the Thomas Franks Feeding Communities initiative, which aims to help eradicate food poverty, chef Adrian Kirby and the team at ECS have volunteered to provide 100 breakfasts a week.

Working in the ECS kitchens, the team prepare the hot breakfasts including all your usual favourites: bacon, sausage, scrambled eggs and hash browns! They then deliver them across the Cathedral Green to St Petrock’s.

St Petrock’s are Exeter’s charity for people who are homeless or vulnerably housed. For over 20 years, they have been providing a range of support, housing and prevention services to help fill the gaps in services available to individuals in need.

Volunteers from St Petrock’s said that “those who are homeless and receiving the hot food, have found it a real benefit, especially as it is so cold at the moment.” Speaking about the choice on offer, they commented that “they have really liked the variations to the usual provision.”

People Matter

ECS pupils already work with the local charity with donations from their annual Harvest Festival. Staff from St Petrock’s gave a series of virtual assemblies to the pupils before Christmas to talk about the work that they do and the impact of the pandemic on the support they can offer.

Mr James Featherstone, Headmaster of ECS said: “We are pleased to be working in partnership with Thomas Franks to support our neighbours and the local community. We’re known as a school where ‘people matter’, and that extends of course beyond the school walls. We encourage our children to be aware of, and grateful for, those around them – and joining forces with Thomas Franks Ltd to support the most vulnerable in our community at this cold time of year is entirely the right thing to do.”

As the School site remains open for children of Critical Workers, the fantastic Thomas Franks catering team were keen to help out and stepped up to the challenge of providing support to some of those that have been hardest hit by the Coronavirus pandemic.

Founder of Thomas Franks, Mr Frank Bothwell, commented “I am so grateful to all at Exeter Cathedral School for their support throughout this time. We will continue to provide our services as long as they are needed, with the continued help. We’re giving back to those who need it and it feels good.”

The School and Thomas Franks are proud to support St Petrock’s in any way they can and look forward to expanding their Feeding Communities project in the local area.