Magic Breakfast charity announces third annual Hackney Village Fayre,

Hoxton Square, 22nd July

 

Funds raised will provide healthy breakfasts to schoolchildren in disadvantaged areas helping to drive educational attainment

 

July 2017, London - Pioneering food charity Magic Breakfast has announced its third annual Hackney Village Fayre, in Hoxton Square on Saturday 22nd July, supported by Amazon, which will shortly open a new head office in Shoreditch. The free event will include food and drink from some of the most popular restaurants in London, alongside face painting, DJ’s, yoga and more, with all proceeds going directly to the charity.

 

Magic Breakfast, which provides healthy school breakfasts for children to drive educational attainment, started in Hackney 16 years ago after its founder, Carmel McConnell, spoke to five primary school headteachers in the borough who all told her the same story: that pupils were arriving at school without having eaten – sometimes having had nothing since their school dinner the day before. With no fuel inside them, children were finding it difficult to concentrate in their core morning lessons and were missing out on key nutrients needed to grow into healthy adults. Today Magic Breakfast has 16 partner schools in Hackney, 191 in London as a whole and 470 nationally, providing nutritious breakfasts to over 31,000 children each school day.

 

Carmel McConnell, founder and Chief Executive of Magic Breakfast, said: “No child should be left behind in this, rich, country because they are too hungry to learn in their morning lessons. A sincere thank you to Amazon and everyone involved in making Hackney Village Fayre such a great event and for helping to ensure that even the most disadvantaged children are given the chance to reach their full potential”.

 

Independent research by the Education Endowment Foundation and the Institute for Fiscal Studies found that pupils in schools with Magic Breakfast clubs boosted their reading, writing and maths results by the equivalent of two months’ progress over the course of a year compared to children in schools with no such breakfast provision.*

 

Evelyn Deeney, Associate Headteacher, Kingsmead Primary School, Hackney added: “Our free breakfast club is a vital part of our school day. It is very noticeable to us that children who have had a healthy breakfast at school are able to begin the school day in a calm and settled way, ready to learn. It’s had a big impact on both behaviour and the children’s ability to concentrate.”

 

Festivities at Hackney Village Fayre kick off at 12pm on Saturday 22nd July, and will include:

 

·         14 local food and drink vendors;

·         a wine and beer bar curated by the Square’s very own 8 Hoxton Square, renowned for their evolving wine list, and craft beer specialist, Biercraft;

·         festival face painting providing Phizart;

·         a yoga class by Homerton’s The Refinery;

·         a Tombola with prizes from Dishoom;

·         DJ sets throughout the day.

 

Admission is free and tokens (£1=1 token) can be purchased on arrival, with food, drink and activities costing from £3-£10 per item. 

 

Participating restaurants are supporters of Magic Breakfast, with many returning for their third year. Expect more Dead Hippie sliders from MEATliquor, delicious coffee from Nude Espresso and short ribs on The Big Green Egg from Foxlow. Plus many more making their debut, including Vietnamese restaurant Pho, with a tasty Bahn Mi, pizza pros Radio Alice, and the infamous Shake Shack Custard Cart.

 

 

-  ENDS  -

 

 

Notes to Editors

 

Hackney Village Fayre, Saturday 22nd July, 12-6pm, Hoxton Square.

Admission – FREE.

Cash and Card payments accepted.

 

A full list of restaurants taking part is below:

 

·         8 Hoxton Square

·         Bone Daddies

·         Dirty Bones

·         Foxlow

·         Gail’s Bakery

·         MEATliquor

·         Nude Espresso

·         Petit Pois Bistro

·         Pho

·         Radio Alice

·         Rude Health

·         Smokey Tails

·         Shake Shack’s Custard Cart

·         The Good Egg

 

 

Nearest Trains

Old Street

Liverpool Street

Hoxton Overground

 

Social Media Handles

Instagram: @magic_breky

Twitter: @magic_breakfast

 

Press Enquiries Hackney Village Fayre

Natalia Ribbe-Szrok

[email protected]

07446 149685

 

Press Enquiries Magic Breakfast

Sophia Dettmer

[email protected]

07399 553154

 

 

Magic Breakfast

 

Magic Breakfast is a registered charity (number: 1102510) providing healthy breakfasts to more than 31,000 UK children every school day over 12,500 of whom are in London. The charity works with schools where over 35% of children are eligible for Free School Meals, or with 50% Ever 6 FSM, helping them to establish breakfast provision that targets every hungry child. A hungry child cannot concentrate and will miss out on the most important lessons, taught in the morning, if not given anything to eat.

 

There are 470 Magic Breakfast partner schools – primary, secondary, SEN schools and Pupil Referral Units in England (191 of which are in London) plus over 300 schools on a waiting list (66 in London, including 5 in Hackney) that have requested urgent food aid.

 

Each “magic” breakfast, of cereal, porridge, bagels and fresh fruit juice, costs the charity just 22p to provide thanks to the generosity of the charity’s food and funding partners.  Magic Breakfast currently has no Government funding. 

 

At least half a million children in the UK arrive at school hungry. The goal of Magic Breakfast is to ensure that, by 2020, there are no children in the UK starting lessons too hungry to learn.

 

www.magicbreakfast.com

 

* Link to EEF/IFS research: https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/our-work/projects/magic-breakfast/

 

 

Amazon’s support for Magic Breakfast

 

In December 2016, Amazon became an important supporter of Magic Breakfast with a pledge to provide over 700,000 healthy breakfasts in the 2016-2017 school year. This enables Magic Breakfast to support over 3,800 children in 57 schools in the communities where Amazon operates across the UK.