As this year’s Litfest – A Food & Drinks Literacy Festival at Ballymaloe drew to a close, Rory O’Connell was joined by Slow Food Ireland to congratulate the winners of the Litfest 2017 Slow Food Children’s Art Competition.
Each year of the festival there has been a very successful writing competition. Eight local schools were involved in the first three years of the competition, in 2016 and again this year the competition was extended to schools in Cork County, all of which are involved with the Slow Food East Cork Grow and Cook project, this year art was the focus of the competition.
This year’s winner was Ben Hally, aged 6 from Clondulane National School who won first place for his painting titled ‘The Farmer’. Heather Lees, aged 12 from Ballycotton National School was awarded second place for ‘Grandad Catching Lobsters’ and in third place was Dillon Morrison, aged 6 from Clondulane National School, Fermoy for ‘The Apple Farm’.
The announcement of the winners was made on the final day of the festival on the main stage in The Grainstore, which was home to the Symposium ‘Our Responsibility’ for the weekend. Following the presentation, the paintings were displayed in The Grainstore for guests to view.
The county-wide Slow Food Children’s Art Competition in association with Litfest 2017 asked primary school students to take inspiration from a local food producer to create a piece of art – a farmer, fisherman, baker, jam-maker, gardener, or anyone working in food production whose story they find interesting as a way of encouraging pupils to learn more about local food producers in their area and to promote conversation about the many opportunities in the food sector.
“We had so many wonderful entries this year, colourful, thoughtful and creative it was incredibly hard to pick the winners.” says Rory O’Connell, co-founder of Litfest. “Ben, Heather and Dillon’s drawings and paintings captured our hearts, they were charming examples of children really connecting with their local community and taking inspiration from their locality.”
“We were delighted to welcome our winners of this county-wide Slow Food Children’s Art Competition in collaboration with Litfest to join the festival line-up this year, and be part of our programme of events that includes authors, chefs, foragers, wine experts, educators, journalists, gardeners and the EU Commissioner for Health & Food Safety, Mr. Vytenis Andriukaitis.”
The fifth annual Litfest – A Food & Drinks Literacy Festival at Ballymaloe took place from the 19th-21st May attracted over 8,000 people, young and old onto the grounds of Ballymaloe House and Cookery School.