food through ‘Fair Shares’ and bought some items from the International Food Stores and Morrison’s here in Fishponds. We had one session led by ‘Kids’ Kitchen’ who did a sort of Masterchef with children and adults, preparing, cooking and eating their own creations. There was also a recipe booklet for every family to take home, plus a bag of ingredients to make more nourishing meals. This was a wonderful session, led by committed, friendly people. Our Director of Operations was Amy Goodwin, who brought a lot of experience of this sort of working. She leads similar initiatives in St Luke’s, Barton Hill, and at Oldbury Court. Amy leads a busy life, travelling everywhere on her bike with panniers filled with food and paperwork. Through various contacts we were able to recruit enough volunteers to run each session comfortably. There were approximately ten helpers at each session, involved in activities with children, sharing meals with families, preparing crafts, cooking and washing up. We even had a second hand school uniform section helping people to prepare for the new school year. In total we had more than 30 volunteers over the course of the summer. They came from the local churches: All Saints, St Mary’s, St Johns, Barton Hill, Cotham, and Frenchay. It was a great working relationship and incredibly calm. At each session there were upward of 50 meals provided. Handwashing, manners and good conversation were seen in abundance. The clearing up at the end of each session was exemplary, with some great hoovering, sweeping and chair stacking by children and adults. I even managed to acquire a Level 2 in Food Hygiene and Safety for Catering as part of our planning and preparation, and the kitchen acquired a new refrigerator. Our grateful thanks to all those who worked in any way to put this initiative together, and a special thank you to those families who joined us in a real community spirit. We hope to repeat the initiative in future school holiday breaks. John Waldren. 9
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