# Sue Perkins counts down to pancake day – with seven bowls of porridge

- Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/2011/03/03/sue-perkins-counts-down-pancake-day-seven-bowls-porridge/
- Published: 2011-03-03T16:37:29+00:00
- Author: Howard Lake

**A TV presenter and a champion porridge maker have joined forces to help feed some
of the world’s hungriest children, in the the run-up to Shrove Tuesday, a traditional
day of feasting in the UK.**

Over the course of the next few days, Sue Perkins, known for her appearance in the‘
Supersizers’ series, and cook Anna Louise Batchelor, freestyle winner at the World
Porridge making Championships, will be filmed creating seven different dishes.

The recipes and tasting sessions will be shown online to raise money for the charity
Mary’s Meals, which runs school feeding projects in developing countries.

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All the recipes feature porridge, the meal given to children at the charity’s schools
in Malawi, and one of the foods that christians in Britain could traditionally eat
during lent, when fasting meant that rich foods like butter and eggs were not consumed.

The recipes and films will be shown on website See the Difference (www.seethedifference.
org), a new initiative which helps charities to raise money and awareness through
short films – and guarantees donors that they will see evidence of the difference
their donation has made.

Sue said: “I eat porridge most days, I just take it for granted, but half way around
the world it’s a life-transforming food. Mary’s Meals’ very specific remit is to
feed children so they are full and able to study. What they do on one level is incredibly
simple, but on another level quite profound. Education is the greatest gift you 
can give a child.”

Dom Vallely, from See the Difference said: “In the UK, Pancake Day is often spent
enjoying lots of rich, luxurious food. We felt the days leading up to it were a 
perfect time to draw attention to the lives of children who don’t have enough to
eat – focusing on porridge, a food that isn’t rich or a luxury, but can be delicious
as well as life-changing.”

It costs less than £7 to provide a child in Malawi with a mug of nutritious, maize-
based porridge every school day for a year. See the Difference hopes that the recipes
will encourage many supporters to donate £7 towards the £3,563 needed to feed all
the children at Mchenza primary school, in the Balaka region of Malawi, for a year.

“If we manage to raise enough money to feed these children, we will definitely be
celebrating with a pile of pancakes, and maybe a bowl of porridge as well,” said
Dom.

Mary’s Meals is one of over a hundred charity projects supported by See the Difference.
Other small organisations who have benefited from high profile support through its
films include Women and Children First, backed by Sarah Brown, and the National 
Bat Helpline, which has been supported by Chris Packham.

You can see the films online at [Mary’s Meals](http://www.marysmeals.org) or [See The Difference](http://www.seethedifference.org).

 * **[A happy charity pancake day](https://fundraising.co.uk/2017/03/01/happy-charity-pancake-day/)(
   1 March 2017)**
