Brixton People’s Kitchen had a busy Summer! In addition to our regular monthly feasts in Myatt’s Fields Park, we have been popping up at the Remakery, in children centres in Stockwell, and in Max Roach One O’Clock Club. Our objective was to inspire the 3 sites to set up their own food waste reduction projects, in a way that is relevant to them. Here is what we did with the lovely group of mums from Max Roach.
We hosted four kitchens at the Max Roach Centre One O’Clock Club, focusing heavily on involving the children in the cooking process. Since September, we have also had two planning meetings with the centre manager, Candice, and the parents who are interested in continuing to run the project themselves. As the group was interested in meeting our food donors, we arranged a trip to New Covent Garden Market. Early on a Thursday morning we gathered at the entrance to the market, five mums and seven children, and walked into the site. We visited two of the traders, who both talked to the group about how the market runs and why so much food gets thrown away. They were delighted to meet the group and fed back to us how valuable it was to meet the people that were benefiting from their donations:
‘Now that I see where the food is going I’ll make sure we keep even more behind for you. I’ll make sure you get some good stuff!’
This positive response from the food suppliers has encouraged the group to think more concretely about collecting surplus for their own events. They are currently completing a budget proposal for the money (£500) that we have allocated them and this will include a bike trailer to collect food surplus from New Covent Garden Market.
A small, enthusiastic planning committee has been established at the Max Roach Centre, and we are currently supporting them into planning how they will run the project. The first event will take place on 31st October and events will occur twice a month, alternating between cooking sessions and ‘Bring and share’ events. The focus of both events will be using surplus food, from the market and from home respectively. Max Roach Centre has also chosen to combine their events with education on vegetables and healthy eating for the benefit of the children.
The most inspiring conversation that came out of our events at Max Roach was a conversation with three young children, between the ages of 4 and 6. They couldn’t understand why anyone would throw away food and, after writing some jumbled letters on a little white board, proceeded to lecture us (whilst pointing to what they had written) on ‘Eat everything on your plate’, ‘Vegetables are good for you’ and ‘Don’t throw away food’. We whole-heartedly agree with them!