We love to partner with local businesses and organisations looking to have a direct impact in their community.
Since 2003, we have helped over 15,000 people learn to cook, grow their own food, eat a healthier diet and waste less. Eating is central to life’s celebrations and memories, and our approach is to use this power of food to bring about change.
Much of our work benefits vulnerable adults and people experiencing deprivation, isolation, poor health and other life challenges. Our activities makes lasting changes to habits and behaviours which improve lives.
We are often contacted by organisations keen to get more involved with this work and support us. There are a range of ways you can do this, including:
- Making a one-off or regular donation, including running fundraising campaigns or events on our behalf – smaller donations are used for food parcel ingredients for local people struggling on benefits & low incomes. £20 pays for a weekly food parcel for one household, £50 pays for a space on a community cookery class.
- Organising a team building event, away day or other business event at our cookery school, the Community Kitchen – or at one of our beautiful community gardens. Typical event sizes are 10-20 people but speak to us if you have a larger group to discuss the options. Any profits from these events support our community activities.
- Become a headline sponsor for a project or course that gives back to a specific audience – for example sponsor the monthly Brunch Bunch cookery club designed for people with learning disabilities.
Our evaluation data and case studies show the strong benefits from our work:
- Healthier diet (including cooking more from scratch, reducing takeaways/ unhealthy snacks and eating more fruit & veg)
- Increased activity levels and improved physical health
- Decreased stress and improved mood
- Decreased isolation and loneliness
- Increased confidence
- Increased skills, and even new careers and employment
Read our latest Impact Report to see a snapshot of how our work changes lives across the city.
“The course gave me some great ideas for veggie dishes… I’ve lost more than 10kgs just from eating better and walking more. Mentally, the change in me is huge too. The course got me back on track. I gained confidence and now want to test my limits to see what else I can do. I find small jobs on our community noticeboard and I’ve also started volunteering for the Kitchen and it feels great. I feel wanted and appreciated and it helps put structure back into my life. It’s something to look forward to in my week.”
participant on budget cookery course
“Rented the Community Kitchen to prepare a meal with my co-workers, and it’s a brilliant space. There’s everything you could need, and it’s all clearly labelled so you’re not constantly searching through cupboards for things. It’s all very clean, which is especially impressive given the fact that they’d just had a big birthday party the night before. It’s really a great place and the work they do in the community is truly admirable. We’re looking for excuses to use the kitchen again soon!”
business partner
If you want to find out more about any of these options, please just get in touch.