After an 18 month wait due to Covid-19, the Cook & Eat training finally took place at the end of September.
The Together Leicester Cook and Eat project was partly funded by the Bishop's Lent Appeal in 2020 to help buy ingredients for participants to complete a Cook and Eat course free of charge.
The project aims to help church volunteers to develop free cooking skills courses for people in their communities with limited access to fresh food and limited confidence to cook healthy meals.
Together Leicester (a partnership between the Diocese of Leicester and Church Urban Fund) is working with churches and other partners including the Soil Association, to develop the volunteer-run hubs to provide these courses.
The first eight people have now been trained and are now equipped to help others grow in confidence in cooking a wide variety of food. They were leaders from:
- Christchurch Thurnby Lodge, through their Wednesday morning Coffee & Chat
- Wesley Hall Community Centre
- Mamas - a charity which supports breastfeeding mums in Leicester City.
They learned knife skills, bread making and cooking one-pot dishes with similar ingredients as well as using leftovers to make potato cakes with tinned fish and/or frozen vegetables.
Siân Rigby, Development Worker for Together Leicester, said:
“Many people are relying on foodbanks and/or need ongoing debt advice support at the moment. We hope these free courses which we want to help volunteers to set up in Leicester can help people learn and gain confidence in cooking with fresh ingredients so they can eat healthily at low cost.”
