A writer who came up with a cookbook for her fellow Kingston students in her spare time has been honoured at a national ceremony for volunteers.

Kingston University students walked away with two of the four awards at the TimeBank Urban Fete event.

Carla Fanning won Most Innovative Project award for her guide to cooking called Carla’s Cookbook.

She said: “I’m really hoping that my cookbook will inspire a new breed of enthusiastic student cooks.”

Mona Odefey and Lizzy Chenery, collectively won an award for promoting Ugandan children’s charity Invisible Children on campus, pipping another shortlisted Kingston student, Deniz Aslan, to the post.

In the past year, volunteers have been involved in projects from a Christmas crafts workshop at the New Malden Age Concern centre, to a project which handed out 2,000 bananas on campus to raise awareness of Fairtrade Fortnight.

Rhiannon Hiscocks, vice-president of the students’ union, said: “It’s a great indication of the quality of volunteer projects this year. Nine of the total 22 shortlisted projects were from Kingston, which really shows the dedication and selflessness of our students.”

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