This year our Harvest Festival services were held across one week at Byron House. The food and monetary donations came flooding in and were delivered to Newmarket Open Door Foodbank. This charity redistributes donated foods and household products to those needing support through their Foodbank shop, as well as via other charities and voluntary and social welfare organisations. Coinciding with our Harvest charitable giving, the annual Byron House Harvest Competition was as popular as ever with entries in the following categories: vegetables, sunflowers, art, photography, cookery and Lego.
The charity operates the Shop ‘n’ Share scheme with donation boxes in local shops for contributions from the general public. They also receive regular and one-off donations from retailers, wholesalers and local churches, businesses and organisations.
Staff at Newmarket Open Door were delighted with the quantity and range of the items they collected from both Senior House and Byron House. The generosity of ŷ’s families was, once again impressive and the gifts made a wonderful display both outside Byron House and Senior House receptions.
Dr Maxwell, the School's Lay Chaplain, who led the Byron House Harvest Assemblies, explained, “Although Covid restrictions meant that our harvest festival could not take place in the usual way, pupils were nevertheless invited to bring in harvest donations on the day it would have been held. Harvest has always been a time when people thank God for giving them enough to eat. At ŷ's, we do this by thinking especially during this period of local people who find it difficult to provide enough food for their families and so go to food banks for help. As always, we were absolutely delighted with the very generous response to our appeal. Newmarket Open Door had delivered 26 crates to the school the previous day and, between them, Senior House and Byron House filled them all to overflowing with packets and tins. We are extremely grateful to everyone who contributed. It is wonderful to think we shall have been able to help so many less fortunate families.”
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The Charities Committee also ran their highly successful Harvest Competition and tables were covered with an abundance of homegrown produce, as well as stunning photographs and carefully constructed models. Head of the Junior Department, Miss Pipe and Dr Maxwell had the hard task of tasting some of the delicious homemade jam and fairy cakes on offer. They took their roles seriously and carefully measured runner beans and tasted jams and cakes. Other categories included the most orange carrot, best pressed flower picture, best seed tray garden, and best Mr Potato Head, amongst a wealth of others.