by Karen Morley

Published at 13:37, Thursday, 17 April 2008

ORPHANS in India have tasted ice cream for the first time, and received clothes and food thanks to the support of a Cumbrian charity which has raised £20,000.

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Curry Aid was set up by Jessie Oddy, who born and raised in Tamil Nadu, India, before settling in Cumbria.

After visiting an orphanage while on holiday, Jessie decided to help improve the lives of the children she met, and started to host curry evenings.

Cooking traditional Indian dishes, she went around local village halls and all the money raised by the events went straight to the children.

The popularity of the evenings spread, and Curry Aid was founded. Jessie and her husband Alan visit the children every year, and fresh from their latest visit, they reveal Curry Aid is about to reach £20,000.

She said: “Every penny raised goes to the children. We do not take any expenses and pay for our own visits to India. The children look forward to our visit, and say it is their Christmas when we come.

“Every child has a story to tell and it is heartbreaking to listen to. It makes me more determined to keep on raising money for them. This year for the first time I met old people who had been thrown out by their families because they were no use to them.

This is something I have never seen before in India where families have always cared for the older people.

“We now have six ladies we call the Wandering Grandmas who have come to live at the orphanage and help with the children.

Though four of them don’t know their age, they will be no more than 60 years old, two of them are 62 and 59.

“This year David and May Gill from Bolton, near Appleby donated money specifically to buy the children in the orphanage ice cream. We arranged for an ice cream van to come one evening, when the girls were back from school. When the van pulled up outside 40 pairs of little feet jumped up and down.

They couldn’t believe it had come to give them ice cream.

“They all lined up to experience for the first time the taste of ice cream. They had never eaten anything so cold before. One little girl asked me how to eat it, and her first little lick was like watching a kitten gently tasting milk.”

Anyone who wants to offer support to Curry Aid can contact Jessie on 017683 51227.

Published by http://www.cumberlandnews.co.uk