Women of the Year Awards

18th October, 2018

This week it was fantastic to see our founder, Carmel McConnell MBE, honoured with the Women of the Year Campaigner Award. The Women of the Year Awards recognise more than 400 women as ‘Women of Achievement’, and six are honoured with Women of the Year Awards for their selfless dedication to their fields of work. In Carmel’s case, this was of course, campaigning to provide free and healthy breakfasts to schools in disadvantaged areas of the UK.

The award ceremony was held at the Intercontinental Hotel in London. Carmel’s award was presented by Fearne Cotton. There were many famous faces at the event including Kate Adie, Claudia Winkleman, Victoria Coren-Mitchell and Mariella Frostrup, all celebrating women who are making a mark on history.

Media coverage of the Awards provided a fantastic opportunity for Carmel to spread the word further about the aims of Magic Breakfast and how the National School Breakfast Programme is helping schools in deprived areas.

ITV London News, Sky News and the i newspaper all covered Carmel’s award. The ITV News crew filmed at one of our long-standing partner schools – Ambler Primary School in Islington.

Interviewed at the school breakfast club Carmel said, “I don’t want any child to miss out on their future success because they can’t learn, because of hunger, not in the sixth richest economy in the world that’s just not right.”

This was backed up by Headteacher Juliet Benis who explained that “lots of children go home at the end of the day and don’t necessarily have a meal … so coming in and having breakfast means they’re not just waiting until lunch to eat again.” The children were asked what difference attending breakfast club had made to them, one girl replied, “we are a bit better in lessons after we’ve had some food”.

Back in the studio Carmel told Nina Hossain “it is a very simple thing, I am very grateful to get the recognition, but I am just hoping that I can use to it to invite more support and get it sorted out permanently.”

Carmel was interviewed on Sky News the following morning which gave her another terrific opportunity to call out to politicians to say, “it’s not rocket science, let’s get a permanent National School Breakfast Programme.”

Congratulations to Carmel on her highly deserved award.

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If you have identified pupils at your school who would benefit from a nutritious breakfast, please read about our eligibility criteria, then we look forward to receiving your application
What we do

Magic Breakfast provides nutritious breakfasts to children as fuel for learning and expert support to schools
The team

Magic Breakfast's head office is in London (this office space is kindly lent to us by Pearson), but our School Partners are located all over England and Scotland so they can be close to the schools they work with.
What can a school expect from us?

Magic Breakfast not only provides food aid to schools, but has an expert team to help identify and reach every hungry pupil, offer nutrition advice and training, give parents nutrition and food hygiene training, and advise on post-breakfast activities such as book clubs and exercise sessions.
Why we are needed

As many as 1.8 million school age children are at risk of hunger in the UK
What does a magic breakfast look like?

We provide schools with low sugar, low salt, low fat, nutritious breakfast food for children. A "magic" breakfast consists of porridge, cereal, specially made protein rich bagels and fresh fruit juice.
National School Breakfast Programme

We are delighted to announce a new partnership with Family Action to deliver the Department for Education's National School Breakfast Programme
How Magic Breakfast began

Magic Breakfast was founded by Carmel McConnell, MBE, in 2003, but she started buying and delivering breakfasts to five schools in the London borough of Hackney three years previously after hearing from headteachers there that many of their pupils couldn't concentrate until they had had their lunch as they were too hungry.
Impact of Magic Breakfast

Teachers at our partner schools report that pupils who have eaten a nutritious "magic" breakfast have improved concentration, energy, alertness, punctuality, behaviour, social skills, health and educational attainment.
Ordering your food deliveries

Schools in partnership with Magic Breakfast get food delivered regularly, straight to the door

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Your donation will support us as we provide healthy and nutritious breakfasts to children at risk of hunger during these challenging times. Thank you for helping us to reach more hungry children. Read more

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