Community Kitchen | Community Kitchen

About us

The Community Kitchen connects people through food. We run community cookery, gardening, food and nature activities for people who are experiencing poverty, ill health, marginalisation or disadvantage.

Our work helps to improve diet, health and wellbeing – and builds skills, confidence and connections. The cooking, gardening and outdoor activities we offer are a lifeline to many of the people we support. They help to reduce loneliness, make the most of limited budgets and spark new interests that lead to happier, healthier lives.

We were established as a registered charity in August 2023. We received support to setup from Brighton & Hove Food Partnership and continue to work closely with BHFP and its cookery school.

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Impact

In our first full year of operation (2024-25), we worked with 90+ people – most living in poverty, isolation or with mental / physical health conditions and ran 29 sessions with 165+ spaces filled – including:

17 community cookery classes at the Community Kitchen – topical lessons on batch cooking x3, low energy cooking, Korean and South Indian cuisines and baking skills. Also sessions focused on reducing food waste – 8x sessions on using up leftovers/ creative cookery and 1x two-day cookery leaders’ course for those who cook at local community food projects.

A cookery & wellbeing session outdoors, based from ‘The Clubhouse’ on the Downs

A ‘participation panel’ session with our regular cookery participants where they gave their ideas for future activities and how we can support them best.

We also ran 10x Chop & Chat sessions with volunteers processing surplus veg to dehydrate and store for future use in community classes and groups.

32 volunteers gave over 300 hours of their time to support our activities this year – the majority attended cookery classes to support participants to get the best out of the sessions.

Our evaluations show how we are improving the lives of our beneficiaries:

%

feel more connected to other people

%

are more confident to follow a recipe

%

have tried new foods

%

have learned about other services & activities

In their own words, we hear how people feel we have helped:

Feeling empowered that I can cook on my own!

I can’t wait to make bread with my kids

I will cook more from scratch… use recipes to eat healthier… and do another class at the Kitchen!

Enjoyed everything – connecting, cooking, laughing.

Overcoming anxiety of meeting new people and being inspired.

Accessible and friendly environment… 100% recommend.

Love this course. Learnt so much and will definitely be cooking more food, less ready made meals and batch cooking too!

As our work expands, we know these impacts will grow too – getting families cooking together, seeing people connecting with each other & joining new activities, volunteering and learning new skills.

Our participants are living with challenging personal circumstances which leave them at high risk of worsening physical & mental health and all the associated personal & societal costs. Our sociable, supportive activities can provide a bridge & a lifeline to help them build a more positive future.