Read all about it! Better Food Company have hit their fundraising target and pledged to continue raising money to deliver more cookery classes for people affected by homelessness. Read on for the full press release…
Organic retailer Better Food’s Streets to Kitchen fundraising campaign has reached its target of raising £10,000 to fund a yearlong cookery and food service course for people affected by homelessness in Bristol.
The money is being donated to local charity Square Food Foundation who have already begun hosting weekly sessions at St. Mungo’s Recovery College. The classes, which are open to all service users at the New Street site in Bristol, offer participants the chance to learn the fundamentals of cooking from scratch, a range of cookery and food service skills, and provide a space in which clients can share the experience of creating and eating meals together. Clients can also take advantage of optional qualifications, which can be used to progress a career in catering.
Speaking after a Streets to Kitchen session, one St. Mungo’s client commented:
“Seeing people once a week means you get to know them. It’s a huge step for me because I never used to leave the house or do groups. I wanted to start slowly with one thing I could stick at."
Better Food launched the campaign to coincide with their 25th anniversary retailing organic, local and ethical food in Bristol. Since then, staff have led a range of initiatives to reach the target, including events such as a Giant Pumpkin Party, a yoga breakfast, in-store raffles and book sales, and special charity products. Meanwhile, customers and supporters in the community have contributed generously to the project, with some such as Bristol Student Junk Food Project even staging their own events to raise funds.
Commenting on the project’s founding Better Food’s Marketing Manager, Lucy Gatward, said:
“As a business, we felt secure that we were leading the way in organic retail, but we wanted to set ourselves the challenge of creating a project that would have a real and positive impact on the people in the community we hadn’t been able to reach previously.
“We’d already supported St. Mungo’s through a one-off fundraiser; bringing Square Food Foundation on board as a partner presented us with the perfect opportunity to start something that could help deliver our mission of creating a better, fairer food community.”
Partners on the project now feel that Streets to Kitchen has gathered enough enthusiasm and momentum to continue with a second year at the Recovery College, with plans to develop a long-term programme based on peer-to-peer learning and to transform the college’s kitchen into a shared space where participants can create, serve and share good food.
You can donate to Streets to Kitchen online, in store and by supporting fundraising events from Better Food and their supporters in the community—see their website for updates.