The Hope Hub hosts Cooking Courses both in The Hope Hub and out in the community, often at St Martin’s or St Michael’s churches. As part of the “Living well programme” these are aimed at helping participants to create, cook and enjoy healthy, nutritious, cost effective meals. They are a fun way for people to experience cooking and eating together family style, often taking home a goody bag and sometimes even a free small kitchen appliance!
Past courses include:
- Affordable Cookery (series of 5 sessions) – Learning to cook using a variety of methods and foods using anything from portable gas stoves to air fryers. Sample Affordable Cookery Flyer
- Slow Cooker Workshops (series of 1 day sessions) – Cooking with a slow cooker
- Steamer Workshops (series of 1 day sessions) – Cooking with a steamer
- Creating Healthy Lunches during half-term (one off outreach session at St Martins Church) – For children with their carers, designing & eating lunches together whilst exploring nutrition through games.
- THH Living Well Activities: eg. Bean Bonanza/Bean Burgers/Chickpea Challenge/Cooking Eggs/Making Pastry (Series of one-off sessions at THH) – For SUs to experience and help cook tasty meals using emergency food parcel items.
“Cooking in the community is always a lively challenge, but invariably worth it as THH reaches out and supports some of the most vulnerable people in the local community.”
The courses are open to everyone, participants are asked to sign up in advance and vary from novice, to professionals, or those finding themselves in changed circumstances; all enjoying learning, looking for ways to save energy, eat healthily or refreshing their cooking skills. It’s also a way of meeting people, breaking down barriers and prejudices. Sometimes participants will need moderate to high levels of support; they maybe recovering from illness, have a history of eating disorders or low literacy, be on the spectrum or recently bereaved and are now coping solo.
Using the latest Steamer course “Steam you way to better Health” as an example; here are the training pack, teaching plan & cooking plan . The photos are from the same course held at St Martins Church (THH Outreach).
What typically happens? Most courses follow a similar pattern.
- Setup – Prepare the area for the course, handwash station, food, appliances, tables Tea & Coffee etc.
- Welcome – Sign in and sign the Media Consent forms, then get to know each other over tea coffee & biscuits!
- Introduction & Demo – What the session will entail, fire exits/toilets, with a demonstration.
- Meal Preparation – Groups of participants staff & volunteers prepare their meal at separate tables; often a fish table, meat table & a vegetarian table.
- Cooking – Groups cook their meal.
- Family Style lunch – Everyone (staff, participants & volunteers) shares the various dishes family style around a big table together, discussing the session and chatting, what worked what didn’t, what they liked, found hard/easy and much more.
- Feedback – Participants complete a short feedback form for funders in exchange for free appliance when they leave!
- Clear up – Everyone together washes up, puts the portable kitchen away and returns the space back to normal.
How as a volunteer could you be asked to help? You will receive an email from the project officer explaining all; what you need to do, including cooking & teaching plans for the day and sometimes a sample cooking pack (See above links). Don’t get overwhelmed by the theory, just come and have fun, listen to people, encourage, support and where needed ask a THH staff member to link in with the wider support available from The Hope Hub. Tasks include:
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Loading, transporting to the venue and unloading cars with items required for the course; such as the portable kitchen, portable sink, appliances (steamers/slow cookers etc.) and boxes of carefully chosen food from the store.
- Unloading cars
- Setting up all the tables, kit and training material, as instructed and required.
- Greeting & serving refreshments making participants feel comfortable.
- Assisting with the training – talking through the training material, being aware of literacy levels, that participants also take home with them (Steamer training pack above), following the participants food interests fish/chicken/veg + rice/couscous + flavouring. This is where it gets creative! Encouraging & supporting participants as they learn new skills, supporting risk management and safety as they cook and tidy. (Watch how they handle knives, manage steam & cooking appliances, food & water spillages, electric cables etc.)
- Listening out for individual needs, sharing ways THH may help or engage a case worker for further assistance.
- Clearing & preparing tables for lunch.
- Lunching together, celebrating achievements, developing ideas and confidence.
- Completing post workshop questionnaire with participants and helping then appliance choose appliance and distributing any left over food (doggy bag!)
- Clearing, cleaning up & re-loading cars.
- Returning to THH to help unpack & put away the portable kitchen.
The THH portable kitchen and sink are stored under the refreshment table in the crisis area, sharp items are in the back office cupboard. Other items such as Steamers or Slow Cookers are often temporarily stored by the stationary cupboard behind the screens. Items from the store are often used too – biscuits/cans/rice/pasta/flavoured couscous etc. Space is always at a premium, so please just ask where things currently are!
