On Saturday 9th of September 2023, Heart & Parcel were honoured to cater for a particularly special event: SamFest. This evening took place in Levenshulme Old Library and was to celebrate the life of a wonderful, kind and vibrant woman, Sam Orton.
Sam was many brilliant things; to us she was a supportive and encouraging colleague well-respected in our local and ESOL community, someone who attended our events and cheered for us from the sidelines as we progressed with our projects and our work using food as a creative language learning tool. Sam herself was a creative soul, using her expressions in playwriting, poetry and the natural world. She is remembered and loved by so many.
Organised and hosted by her husband, Bob and over 150 of Sam’s large and supportive community of friends, family and work colleagues, SamFest was a night of celebration, food, performance, reflection, poetry, music, connection, friendship, partying, laughter and good spirit.
Through this event, Bob and all attendees raised an unbelievable £9060 for Heart & Parcel through donations, tombola raffle and a silent auction.
The money has been split into various projects aligning to our key values: Language, Food, Recognition and Community and will be used with creativity, nature and learning in mind, paying respects to the things that Sam loved. Here are some of the projects that the money has supported so far:
Watch this space for all the great and impactful work we can now continue to carry out thanks to the kind and generous community centred around Sam Orton. A huge thank you to Bob for being so inspiring in setting this up at this time.
And thank you always to Sam. For keeping things going.
