A Grade 10 student at Wellington Heights Secondary School is selling a cookbook compiled from family and community recipes in an effort to raise money for a new accessible van he requires.
John Ray published Big John’s Farm Fresh Recipes: Quick, Healthy, Easy with recipes based off of ingredients he and his family sell at the Wellington North Farmers’ Market in Mount Forest.
“I really love food, and my mom likes cooking, and my family has a lot of really great recipes,” Ray told the Wellington Advertiser.
Ray has congenital muscular dystrophy and needs a motorized wheelchair and an accessible van to get around. The current van his family uses needs to be replaced at an expected price tag of around $100,000.
"We need something with better supports inside the van for the extra weight of my wheelchair, and more space because I'm growing and the chairs are getting bigger," Ray said in an interview with the CBC.
While most of the 35 recipes in the cookbook are from Ray’s family, some local radio personalities contributed to the book, as did MP for Perth-Wellington, John Nater.
The cookbook is priced at $25 and Ray expects to raise between $5,000 and $6,000 selling them.
Big John’s Farm Fresh Recipes: Quick, Healthy, Easy can be purchased in-person at Hybrid Hair & Detox Spa in Mount Forest and Cut and Design in Fergus, or by emailing John directly.