20 April 2011
Local Reading West MP Alok Sharma joined Reading Mayor Gul Khan on Saturday 16th April to open the Pride of Dee Park charity’s Spring Fayre in Lyon Square. The Pride of Dee Park is a newly established charity which is working to raise funds to run activities for the local community.

The afternoon, which organisers estimate was attended by over 400 people, featured an Easter egg hunt, tombola, car boot sale, cake stall and games. The event also featured a ‘fruit smoothie’ bike used to promote healthy eating. Together with many others, Alok pedalled on this specially adapted bicycle, which transferred the energy generated from the pedalling motion to a food blender mounted on the bicycle, which in turn was used to process frozen fruit pieces and turn them into a delicious and healthy fruit smoothie drink!

Alok said: “Congratulations to local residents Satty Mann, Dominique Grandison, Ayodele Soares and Kirsty Spray who organised the Spring Fayre event which was a big success. With the determination and hard work already demonstrated by all those involved with the charity, I am sure the Pride of Dee Park organisation will continue to go from strength to strength.”

Satty Mann, one of the organisers of the Spring Fayre, commented: “We were delighted at the success of our first Spring Fayre. It is brilliant to see the community coming together at an event like this. We are especially thankful to Willmott Dixon Group which provided 200 eggs for the Easter egg hunt, and to all the local shops and members of the community who donated prizes for the raffle.”

Photos: (top) Alok Sharma with local youngsters trying out the Smoothie Bike, (bottom) Alok with Dominique Grandison and Satty Mann