Keyhouse have recently been awarded funding from LandAid towards the costs of refurbishment of the kitchen area at Cavell House.
LandAid is the property industry's charity and a leading charitable investment vehicle within the sector with a specific focus on the young and disadvantaged.
The refurbishment of the kitchen at Cavell House in Bradford will enable us to offer the "cook" part of our goal of enabling users of our supported housing services, and those of other agencies like ours, to grow their own food, prepare it and eat it: Grow Cook and Eat.
A survey of 68 service users in December 2010 found that:
- only 2.9% (2 people) got 5 portions of fruit and vegetables a day
- only 19% prepare a meal from scratch every day
- 56% don't have the money to buy or prepare fresh food
- 81% say that they have a cooker
- 35% actually just use a kettle, microwave or toaster to prepare meals
- 65% want to learn how to prepare and cook healthy meals
- 75% just want to learn to cook
- 66% are interested in food hygiene
Through developing this project we are aiming to move these statistics in the right directions with a particular focus on:
- Increasing the numbers who prepare a meal from scratch every day
- Meeting the needs of those who want to learn how to prepare and cook healthy meals
- Meeting the need of those who want to learn to cook
- Informing and educating about food hygiene
We already have a thriving allotment project covering 7 allotment plots in Bradford, worked together as a single growing area. This has been running for 3 years and has been successful in engaging both users of our services and those of other projects into running the plots and growing vegetables and fruit.
Produce from the site is currently taken away by users on a daily basis and a weekly produce box is also provided for our Hostel in Keighley which is used for running cook and eat sessions with our residents there. Our Hostel has now developed another smaller growing plot in Keighley to expand on this.
The project is for users of our supported housing services and the allotment site and those of other agencies and we are expecting to deliver cook and eat for at least 100 people a year.
If you would like more information on LandAid, please visit their website - http://www.landaid.org/
Current kitchen area
