All Saints church hall in Peckham, Southeast London, is fairly unremarkable to the unknowing eye. The usual community notices adorn the iron gates: jumble sales, nursery school hours, don’t forget Tuesday bin day. Little do the many passers by know, heading to the newly opened pop-up coffee shops and hubbub of Rye Lane, that the tiny church hall shed is fit to burst with bags of onions, sprouting potatoes, and enough oranges to feed a small army. These are the foundations of a full three-course meal, cooked and dished up every week by FoodCycle, the charity that combats food waste, poverty and social isolation, and who every Saturday treat All Saints as home.
FoodCycle is a national charity, with hubs all over the country that rely solely on volunteers to provide food and company to members of the community. Food is donated by local supermarkets or shops, on the basis that it can no longer be sold: ‘out-of-date’ food that you or I would probably have a quick prod, shrug, and happily have for dinner; wonky carrots and avocadoes with brown bits on; boxes of chickpeas that have taken an accidental tumble and received an un-aesthetically pleasing dint. Under normal circumstances this food would probably be binned, as part of the 15 million tonnes of food thrown out by households and shops in the UK every year. Organisations such as FoodCycle not only help combat this waste, but divert it to people in the community who need it most.
Over the past couple of months I’ve been volunteering at the Peckham hub, getting to know how FoodCycle operates and the impact it has on the community. The afternoon starts off with a food collection, first from Sainsbury’s, then trundling round Rye lane with a snazzy trolley full of peppers, plums and plantain donated by the many market stalls. This is then weighed and sorted, before the challenging bit begins of deciding what to cook – more difficult than it sounds when you’re presented with 28 pomegranates. Volunteers split into soup, main and pudding teams and commence peeling, chopping and mixing; soon bean burgers and an orange upside-down cake are taking shape. Others set up the hall with tables and plastic cloths, bunches of flowers and jugs of coffee. Just as the carrot, coriander and onion soup is being blended (after a quick plug change to fix the blender) the first guests arrive, and settle down with cups of tea and coffee. Soon there are about 35 guests, some sat in groups chatting, others just enjoying the food and a bit of time to stop. One mother is doing her work for a night school class she’s attending, whilst her daughter plays with one of the volunteers. She says FoodCycle gives her a break for an evening from managing two jobs and childcare, as well as a well-balanced meal for her and her daughter, that she doesn’t always find time to prepare. It’s not just the food that is important for people who come to FoodCycle – though for many it is the main meal of their week – it’s the time they can spend with other people somewhere warm and welcoming, whether they are regulars, or just passing.
FoodCycle is lucky to have a network of committed volunteers, but it still needs money to buy basic ingredients (can’t turn those pomegranates into a crumble without any flour) and to cover costs of premises upkeep and cooking equipment. Without this FoodCycle couldn’t do the valuable work it does offering isolated members of the community a place of refuge, company and much needed hot meal, which is why the money we are raising, and your help in ding so, is so important.
FoodCycle is a national charity, with hubs all over the country that rely solely on volunteers to provide food and company to members of the community. Food is donated by local supermarkets or shops, on the basis that it can no longer be sold: ‘out-of-date’ food that you or I would probably have a quick prod, shrug, and happily have for dinner; wonky carrots and avocadoes with brown bits on; boxes of chickpeas that have taken an accidental tumble and received an un-aesthetically pleasing dint. Under normal circumstances this food would probably be binned, as part of the 15 million tonnes of food thrown out by households and shops in the UK every year. Organisations such as FoodCycle not only help combat this waste, but divert it to people in the community who need it most.
Over the past couple of months I’ve been volunteering at the Peckham hub, getting to know how FoodCycle operates and the impact it has on the community. The afternoon starts off with a food collection, first from Sainsbury’s, then trundling round Rye lane with a snazzy trolley full of peppers, plums and plantain donated by the many market stalls. This is then weighed and sorted, before the challenging bit begins of deciding what to cook – more difficult than it sounds when you’re presented with 28 pomegranates. Volunteers split into soup, main and pudding teams and commence peeling, chopping and mixing; soon bean burgers and an orange upside-down cake are taking shape. Others set up the hall with tables and plastic cloths, bunches of flowers and jugs of coffee. Just as the carrot, coriander and onion soup is being blended (after a quick plug change to fix the blender) the first guests arrive, and settle down with cups of tea and coffee. Soon there are about 35 guests, some sat in groups chatting, others just enjoying the food and a bit of time to stop. One mother is doing her work for a night school class she’s attending, whilst her daughter plays with one of the volunteers. She says FoodCycle gives her a break for an evening from managing two jobs and childcare, as well as a well-balanced meal for her and her daughter, that she doesn’t always find time to prepare. It’s not just the food that is important for people who come to FoodCycle – though for many it is the main meal of their week – it’s the time they can spend with other people somewhere warm and welcoming, whether they are regulars, or just passing.
FoodCycle is lucky to have a network of committed volunteers, but it still needs money to buy basic ingredients (can’t turn those pomegranates into a crumble without any flour) and to cover costs of premises upkeep and cooking equipment. Without this FoodCycle couldn’t do the valuable work it does offering isolated members of the community a place of refuge, company and much needed hot meal, which is why the money we are raising, and your help in ding so, is so important.
Hannah Cook
