People’s Kitchen Update
At 10am, every Tuesday since 2018, the doors to the cafe would open, crates of surplus food chosen and sorted, chopping boards, peelers and aprons distributed, and the soon the space would be a-buzz with chatter, clatter and carrot peel. By midday all the prepped food would have been whizzed upstairs via our clanky dumb-waiter, to be transformed by chefs into a nutritious, free hot lunch for our community, then served up at 1pm to around 20-25 lovely regulars from all over Walthamstow and Leyton. Extra meals boxed up and labelled, to be distributed by bike to people who need them.
Bringing people together through food is a huge part of what we do, and People’s Kitchen has been an anchoring point of our activities. The conversations and connections, the care and the cultivated sense of belonging have become woven into the fabric of The Hornbeam, so much so that we continued to run the project beyond the end of specific project funding, for some time! Sadly, the maths of paying a chef and facilitator eventually stops adding up.
A cost that was also becoming unsustainable is the additional staff time spent supporting or trying to help address the often complex needs of community members welcomed into the Hornbeam’s safe and free space, who are often facing challenges of their own during an era of underfunded mental health services, stretched council budgets, inadequate and expensive housing, the loneliness crisis, poor health, grief and unstable geo-politics. Yes of course we signpost, and are proud to have close working relationships with so many of the hard working Voluntary and Community Sector organisations and LBWF’s teams and branches of community services. Everyone is doing a lot, with very little.
After much reflection we have come to the decision to downsize our People’s Kitchen offering. It is such a crucial community connector that we will still be welcoming people to help prepare and eat lunch together on the last Tuesday of the month, from 10am to 2pm. Chop and chat from 10, lunch served at 1pm. Spaces limited to 20 people max.
At first we were hesitant to share the realities of the challenges and changes, but we believe in transparency and being honest about the realities of running community projects that rely on funding. Many thanks!
