MK College supports local charity at Christmas Tree Festival

Milton Keynes College is taking part in this year’s Christmas Tree Festival at local shopping centre Midsummer Place.  

The festival involves local organisations sponsoring one of 20 Christmas trees for a charity of their choice and in return decorating their trees however they would like. There is a competition where shoppers can vote for their favourite tree and the organisation with the winning tree will be rewarded with a portion of the total funds collected during the campaign, contributing to the charity of their choice. 

MK College has chosen to support St Mark’s Meals, it’s chosen college charity. St Mark’s Meals MK provide and distribute dinner kit boxes to over 100 schools and children’s centres all across Milton Keynes so that any member of staff at these places can give a box to any child, whenever they see the need.  

Rebecca Myrie, Head of Community Engagement at Milton Keynes College, commented: “We were so excited to hear about the Christmas Tree Festival and we knew immediately that we wanted to support St Mark’s Meals. 18,000 local children are living in poverty right now – that means that there are thousands of parents and carers who know the stress and pain of not being able to provide dinner for their family. St Mark’s Meals is working hard to make sure that no children in Milton Keynes are going to bed hungry, and we wanted to do our bit to support them”. 

The College’s learners have been heavily involved in the decoration of the tree. Julia Klimaszewska, a former Level 3 Graphic Design student at the College, designed an amazing mural for our Chaffron Way campus, inspired by our vision of education that goes Beyond the Classroom. Colleagues at the College loved the mural so much that they’ve incorporated elements of the mural into the designs of the tree’s baubles. 

The College’s Engineering department took Julia’s creations and used a laser cutter to produce the fantastic baubles on the tree in our brand colours. Staff and learners from across the College then came together to decorate our tree – it was a real team effort! The tree also includes baubles from the College’s charity partner, St Mark’s Meals MK.  

You can vote for the College Group’s Christmas tree (tree number 11) at https://midsummerplace.co.uk/events/christmas-tree-festival-2023

For more information on the College’s work in the community, visit https://mkcollege.ac.uk/community/working-with-the-community/