Help save our community meals service!
Cooking Champions is in urgent need of raising £2600 in order to continue running a critical community meal initiative every Thursday, hosted in our Community Kitchen in the heart of Enfield.
From December 2022 to July 2023, we were able to open our doors to approximately 90 people in the community to join us for meals. Every week we designed a different menu, celebrating different worldwide cuisines, using redistributed food from our amazing partners, The Felix Project. And if any food is left over, we make sure guests are given meals to take home.
This is a free-to-access service, ensuring everyone in the community can benefit from this provision. Through it we are able to help a wide range of people, including those affected by social isolation, financial difficulties, homelessness, domestic violence and physical and mental health issues.
Some guests have reported not eating a hot meal for days before joining us. We provide positive health benefits for our guests, providing a nutritionally balanced, homemade meal.
But this project is much more than simply providing food - Cooking Champions offers a friendly, safe space for the community to come together. For many who visit us, it is the only time during the week they get to socialise with other people. Guests are made to feel welcome as soon as they step through the door.
We love seeing the friendships that are being built among people who have the opportunity to sit down and talk with others from their local area. When guests attend the meal we also encourage them, where appropriate, to access the other services we offer, such as our food bank and cooking lessons. One of the guests joined our Men’s Over 50s cooking course and showed real potential. We trained him and he is now one of the volunteer cooks.
We originally received funding from the Department of Work and Pensions and then The National Lottery in order to launch the project, but are now in urgent need of raising more in order to sustain our successful weekly sessions.
Each session costs £240 to run. While we are busy applying for grants to secure the long term future of this project, we have set up this emergency fundraiser to bridge the gap.
With your help - with a donation big or small - we can get straight to work and ensure we are providing food and a safe, warm and welcoming environment for our community.
Our guests are desperate to see this service return. We are determined to make this happen.
Please help us reach our target :). Thank you for your support!
Team Cooking Champions
