In recent weeks our colleagues have shown their commitment and creativity to, at each challenging turn, continue to support communities. During the Government directive to stay at home, our colleagues in Community Involvement adapted Good Grub Club – a holiday hunger scheme – to Good Grub Club at Home, a food delivery service in response to COVID-19.
As we come out of a period of social isolation, we have put lots of work into the recovery of our services in order to return to a sense of normalcy. We are working closely with external agencies to connect people who still require emergency food provision, ensuring they receive the support they need, and we have adapted our Good Grub Club to a virtual offering.
What is Good Grub Club?
Families who receive free school meals can experience food poverty during holidays, as well as social isolation from other community members. Good Grub Club was setup to combat both. By providing interactive workshops that get families cooking and socialising, and then providing recipe bags with fresh ingredients, we are going some way to tackling this serious issue.
Holiday hunger has been exasperated during the COVID-19 era so our role as a housing provider has been brought into much sharper focus. We are in a position to provide support through Good Grub Club sessions and have explored new ways to do so during the on-going health crisis.
The club also looks to combat issues around health and nutrition as well as tackling holiday hunger. The meals we cook are healthy and nutritious as well as cheap to make. In normal circumstances we run a physical activity session at each of the sessions after the food has been prepared to encourage the children to be as active as possible.
Going digital
We have undertaken lots of research and spoken to community members to understand how best we can deliver effective services. With the knowledge we gained from this activity, we know that delivering Good Grub Club virtually is the best way forward during the upcoming summer holiday.
To deliver sessions we will be sharing a cook along video that will accompany a delivery of a free ingredients box and a resource booklet. We will be providing a piece of physical activity equipment, such as a cricket bat and ball, to encourage families to get outside and play over the summer. As an extra, we’ll also be including a ‘reading challenge’ booklet from the Reading Agency to encourage good mental wellbeing as well as physical fitness over the summer period.
By moving to online methods of connecting with community members we can still provide essential support and tackle holiday hunger while keeping a safe distance. We’ve kept our offering as close to our usual output as possible while utilising new technology to really enable us to stay connected.
Committed to communities
We remain committed to customers and communities and we are always exploring new ways to champion ideas and provide support. From community funding and social prescribing to cookery workshops and gardening projects, we will continue to be there for the people living in the places we operate.