Food Security
Access to healthy, low cost food and ingredients is a challenge for many people on low incomes across the country, and food security has become a bigger issue as support systems have been reduced.
Cook & Eat
Together Leicester is a Christian voice on the Feeding Leicester Steering group, which is part of the national Feeding Britain network. In this role we are leading on the Key Theme of Building Food Security – the development of cooking skills, financial skills and advice, food growing and digital access.
In March 2020, after careful listening to the local community, and working with Food for Life, the first 2 cooking confidence sessions were run at Christchurch Thurnby Lodge, in the east of Leicester. Covid-19 pressed pause on this project, but we are really pleased to be able to share with you pictures of the training session run at Christchurch Thurnby Lodge on 29th September! We had 8 people trained to deliver cooking sessions through the Food for Life model, from Christchurch Thurnby Lodge, Wesley Hall Community Centre and the Mamas charity which supports breastfeeding mothers. We are looking forward to seeing these venues using the training to support and serve their local communities!
Food Pantries!
We are excited to announce a new project, with funding from The Albert Gubay Foundation, to set up food pantries in Leicester City. Food pantries are a form of social supermarket, designed to give people access to affordable, healthy food in a dignified and sustainable way. Members pay between £3.50-£5 a week, and for that they can choose around 10 items of food which are worth a total of £15-£20. At present, we are working with 2 confirmed venues:
- Wesley Hall Community Centre
- All Saints Church, Belgrave
Below is a picture of the space at All Saints Belgrave which we envisage using for this project, and the kind of equipment that we will put in that space to create the shop!
We are also exploring with another church, and hope to be able to make an announcement about this soon!
We hope to get more funding towards this project in due course, if you would be interested in working with us on setting up a food pantry in your area, please get in touch via the contact page.
Work with us on cooking skills or a food pantry
If you are a community organisation or local church who would be interested in partnering with us to run a cooking skills courses or a food pantry, please contact our Development Worker.