EPPING FOREST: Teachers dine on cockroaches in charity fund-raiser (From East London and West Essex Guardian Series)

EPPING FOREST: Teachers dine on cockroaches in charity fund-raiser

10:55am Tuesday 5th July 2011 in Epping Forest News By Tom Porter

COCKROACH sandwiches were on the menu for nursery assistants as they took on a series of stomach-turning challenges to raise money for charity.

Nursery staff from across Epping Forest gathered at Debden House in Loughton for what was dubbed I'm a Nursery Manager Get Me Out Of Here.

With the weather almost as warm as the Australian jungle, the volunteers settled down to dine on insects and relax with maggot foot baths.

Donna O'Malley, who used to work at Teddie’s Nursery in Willingale Road, Loughton, helped to organise the event.

She said: “We wanted to do something better and bigger than your usual charity fund-raisers.

“The parents nominated the challenges for us and I am just glad that I was not given the cockroach sandwich challenge. The girls who did said you could feel the shells crunch as you bit into them.

“I hate maggots with a passion and I had to put my foot in a bowl of them, it was awful.

“The main thing is that we completed all of the challenges and managed to raise money for a really good cause.”

The brave teachers raised more than £1,500 for the Bright Horizons Foundation for Children which provides learning and play centres for children from difficult backgrounds.

To donate to the Bright Horizons Foundation for Children visit www.brighthorizonsfoundation.org/Pages/Give/give.aspx

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