The Dunbury School would like to say a huge thank you to Exclusive Furniture of Sturminster Newton for their very generous donation recently of a fully fitted kitchen.

Since the introduction of the Hot School Meals, many small rural schools such as The Dunbury Primary School in Winterborne Valley have been striving to comply. They have tried many options including eating in the local village hall and using classrooms, none of which are ideal.

The Dunbury had a vision in 2008 to extend their sports hall to make provision for a new kitchen/servery with additional storage for dining room furniture. Four years on, unfortunately funding came to an end just before the project was completed, so the school were left with an empty space which should have been a kitchen.

Sarah Sherwin, Business & Finance Manager of The Dunbury School says “Jumping through hoops and over hurdles, the building element of the work was finally completed in December 2011. That was by Rollalong Ltd of Wimborne, who did an excellent job, skilfully craning the new extension into place. The space was ready with the exception of a fully functioning kitchen, due our funds running out at the very last step of the process, but Exclusive Furniture of Sturminster Newton has come to the rescue. Their design makes really effective use of the space and we now have a lovely fully fitted servery, thanks to Exclusive’s generosity we are delighted that Hot School Meals in our Whitechurch Base will no longer have to be served in classrooms. The school staff are so pleased and love working from their new kitchen.”

Exclusive Furniture HTQ Ltd in Sturminster Newton heard about the plight of the school through a local resident, surveyed the work needed and within just a few weeks have supplied and fitted the kitchen as a gift to the school.