BIGGEST BANANA SPLIT IN BUXTON!

For the second year running, a group of Buxton and Leek College Hospitality and Catering students made a gigantic Banana Split to mark Fairtrade Fortnight (23^rd February – 8^th March 2015).  Last year’s Split was ten metres long and made with 100 Fairtrade bananas.  “I was a bit concerned that we wouldn’t be able to find 100 volunteers to eat it,” said Ingrid Keith, Chaplain at Buxton and Leek College, who commissioned it.  “But it disappeared within seconds.  So this year we thought we’d add another two metres and make it twelve metres all together.  The students once again did us proud.”

The Split was brought out into the Dome in six lengths of two-metre guttering and was devoured by staff, students and visitors to the Dome as part of the Chaplaincy’s Fairtrade Day.  There were four public showings of the new film, “Fairtrade Matters” with free Fairtrade tea and chocolate brownies made by MA student Ellie Melissourgaki.  Meanwhile Charles Jolly of the Buxton Fairtrade Town Steering Group ran a Fairtrade Hoopla and Pingpong stall where players could bag prizes such as a Fairtrade pineapple.

The idea was to celebrate the fact that an increasing number of people now recognise the Fairtrade Mark when they shop for products such as tea, coffee, cocoa and bananas.  They understand that  they can enjoy Fairtrade products more, knowing that the people who produced them, sometimes in the poorest parts of the world, are guaranteed a living wage and decent working conditions.