Food Poverty

Our new project will reduce the anxiety and stress that parents/care givers encounter trying to keep food on the table, tackle the stigma and social isolation associated with poverty and homelessness and build confidence and skills around growing and preparing food. Our vision is to replace the stress with families having fun cooking together.

For over two decades we have provided goods and equipment enabling people to shop, store and cook at home. Responding to service user requests we developed services encouraging growing and cooking food socially. Our Community Kitchen enables us to pilot ways to expand this to complement the work of our Pantry.

We will run 8 Family Friday programmes during the year. These 4-week programmes will include 4 adults and 8 children to enable effective intensive support. They will combine seasonal elements of gardening and cooking e.g. pick, cook and eat from our garden. Families will come together in the Community Kitchen to prepare a meal and eat together. We will run a number of one-off taster days to encourage new agencies to refer. We will reach approx. 40 households.

We will engage 40 families in our new Dish of the Day project providing them with the ingredients and recipes to cook a family meal for 4 weeks. We piloted this across 2021 and have evaluated its positive impact on recipients. The option of progressing to the Dish of the Day means that people are supported beyond the 4-week in-house programme helping to further develop skills and confidence and maintaining the links.

We will run 8 community meals reaching families in North Edinburgh and those living in temporary accommodation across Edinburgh. Catered by our volunteers we can engage directly with potential service users so that we can draw on their inputs to ensure services are responsive to needs. Our existing community researcher team will engage with these events using them as an opportunity to work with service users in a relaxed setting. We will reach approx. 80 households.

We will support an additional 40 families through a Holiday Hunger support which ensures they have access to additional food through the Community Pantry during 12 weeks of school holidays.

In addition, we will offer ongoing support to families taking part in the project through Community Pantry memberships and volunteering opportunities.

Who is it for?

People who are experiencing the challenges of living in temporary accommodation, those moving on from homelessness into new tenancies and those who are at highest risk of losing their homes due to financial crisis and long-term poverty.

Cost: FREE service