What was Healthy Holidays?Healthy Holidays was a 2-year pilot community fund for Lambeth groups to run food projects for young people during the school breaks. We worked in partnership with Fareshare, the national food surplus charity.
We will be posting information about current school holiday food projects on this page soon. Watch this space! |
|
"A big thanks to all the groups, parents, carers, volunteers and young people that have taken part so far. Without your energy and support, the scheme would not have been so successful." |
Healthy Holidays
Healthy Holidays ran a fourth and final round of community food projects under the pilot scheme. We continued to work with local groups who ran free healthy food projects over the summer holidays for young people in Lambeth. FareShare London provided healthy surplus food and drink as part of the offer. Once again, the scheme and groups have made some brilliant achievements, they include:
|
Fruit salad pots prepared by young people at Lollard Adventure Playground.
|
|
Lollard St Adventure Playground continued their Healthy Food Snack workshops. The young people learnt how to make healthy snacks and ate together over the 30 day project. Some young people brought in food they made at home to show staff showing off their new skills.
Oasis Children’s Venture continued their cooking and eating together activities across both their sites, the adventure playground and nature garden, making use of their food growing space. They incorporated the cooking activities into their arts and crafts projects.
|
Streatham Youth & Community Trust provided breakfast and cooked lunch for the 60 young people attending their activities. They dealt with the challenge of recruiting more parents to volunteer by involving their young leaders.
St. Matthew’s Project provided hot lunches for the boys attending their summer football tournament in Brockwell Park. The group continued to use Orange Bay local restaurant, which has been popular.
|
“The young people even get a say in what goes on our menu. Feedback from parents has been very positive, not only have they been getting involved, volunteering to come down and help prepare and cook meals for the group, but several have donated things like cases of bottled water.” |
|
During the Easter break, Healthy Holidays funded four groups, running workshops and events for local children and their families. We continued our partnership with FareShare London, and the groups continued their excellent work. Achievements include:
|
St. Matthew's Project rewards parents for their work on its project.
|
|
Lollard Adventure Playground continued their Healthy Snack Project. they began in the summer. The group ran a 9-day project, with young people cooking and eating together. They also planted crops in their garden and visited Kew Gardens.
Oasis Children’s Venture continued their cooking and eating together activities across both sites, making use of their kitchen garden. They have also produced a video celebrating their Healthy Holidays projects.
|
|
|
|
Oasis Children's Venture celebrates Healthy Holidays! Check out this great video from the young people at Oasis Children's Venture in Stockwell. |
Healthy Holidays
Healthy Holidays projects funded five groups who ran food workshops and events for local children and their families over the Christmas break. Parents and carers were involved in delivering all the projects. We continued our partnership with FareShare London, who delivered healthy fruit, drinks and snacks to our groups. Over the holiday we made some great achievements:
|
Oasis Children's Venture.
Photo: Amelia King
|
|
Beth Centre’s peer mentors cooked a festive feast for their members and families, plus they ran four weekly Healthy Eating on a Budget workshops in January.
"The grant enabled us to show mothers how to prepare and cook different food, introduced some new, healthy ingredients/ alternatives." |
Lollard Adventure Playground continued the Healthy Snack Project they began in the summer. The group ran a 7-day project, also cooking Christmas dinner with parents and carers. They took their young people on a day trip to Borough Market, met farmers, sampled their produce and visited Sky Garden.
Oasis Children’s Venture collaborated with Hyde Housing and Studley Estate Residents Association to run a Winter Wonderland free event for local families. Their grant paid for the catering for the 3-day event, which attracted over 500 local people.
|
St. Matthew’s Project ran a one-day community feast on Tulse Hill Estate, with an additional football session. The event attracted 80 young people and volunteers. The group used the feast to celebrate the success of their activities over the year.
Streatham Youth & Community Trust ran two, one-day community feasts, one at each of their sites. They used the feasts as an opportunity to develop connections with the families of local children who use their services.
|
Healthy Holidays Summer 2015
In summer 2015, Healthy Holidays supported seven groups in Lambeth to run food projects. We had successful summer, each group designed and delivered projects to suit their groups needs. We worked with FareShare London, who provided healthy surplus food and drink as part of the offer to the groups. Our achievements over the summer were:
- 442 young people benefiting from each session
- 6583 meals provided over the holiday
- 35 parents involved
- 30 volunteers
- 1.4 tonnes of surplus food and drink diverted from landfill
Beth Centre ran Healthy Eating on a Budget workshops for young mothers and their children. Beth Centre's Peer Mentors designed and delivered the workshops and also undertook Food Safety and Health & Nutrition training to complement their work. Ella Pollock, Volunteer & Peer Mentoring Coordinator said: "Due to the workshops [the women] have started talking to friends and family about healthy eating and where to by healthy food for less."
Oasis Children’s Venture ran a healthy food project using their nature and forest gardens as the basis for their meals.The children were involved in planning a weekly menu, plus cooking and eating activities using their on site kitchen and cob oven. Director Joanne Brown said: "Healthy Holidays gave us a structured focus around healthy eating. Some children were able to recreate dishes they had learned through Healthy Holidays at home with their families."
Streatham Youth Centre used their grant to provide breakfast and lunches for the young people attending their sports and drama activities. Principal Youth Worker Mark Wood said, "Members all enjoyed the food, it was a great way of getting everybody to eat together, and for some it would have been the only healthy meal they got. Good way to meet and get to know parents who were helping."
|
Brixton People’s Kitchen delivered four events over the summer including a cooking class for parents, carers and children in Myatt's Fields Park using their mobile kitchen, making healthy vegetarian food using surplus ingredients from local suppliers. They also linked up with food surplus charity Foodcycle and their volunteers. Kemi Akinola from People's Kitchen said, "Our project aimed to educate children and teach them simple cooking skills."
Oasis Playspace is part of the Oasis Church network. They used their grant to provide packed lunches for off-site visits, on-site activities at its play project also to provide food for a celebratory family event at Oasis Farm in Waterloo. Louisa Parrales, Children & Family Development Worker said, "This grant was of great support to our summer programme because it meant that we were able to provide healthy lunches for all the children who attended."
St. Matthew’s Project provided healthy, hot food for young footballers as part of their Summer World Cup Tournament. The group used the food as part of wider healthy eating work they are doing around its relation to sports excellence. Project Manager Lee Dema said, " Our feedback forms show that many of our young people would not otherwise have eaten during the day. Aside from the meals, we noticed that there was a real social aspect to mealtimes."
|
Lollard Adventure Playground ran a Healthy Snack project, combining cook and eat sessions with developing their kitchen garden . The young people learnt how to make healthier snacks that they shared together. They also created a blog with recipes of how to make them:
http://lollardstreethealthyeating.blogspot.co.uk/ "We feel the project was extremely successful and not only taught the children how to make some new snacks, but also gave them some new experiences of food they had never tried before." |
Summer Half Term Trial 2015: St. Matthew's
Project Brixton
For the summer half term holiday 2015, we ran a one-day trial of a Healthy Holidays food project. The event was really successful, we worked with St. Matthew’s Project in Brixton. St. Matthew’s Project has run since 2004 and regularly engages over 150 young people each week through its sports activities, off-site trips, youth volunteering, accredited training courses and healthy lifestyle workshops.
|
St. Matthew's Project ran a one-day football tournament in Brockwell Park. They wanted to use Healthy Holidays to provide food for their young people on the day. The good weather attracted 74 young people, who all stayed for a lunch of Caribbean stewed chicken, rice and peas, plantain and coleslaw. The group has limited kitchen facilities, so bought in its food, supplied by local restaurant Orange Bay.
|
We also teamed up with FareShare London, the food surplus charity, who provided healthy drinks, snacks and fruit. Two local parents supported the project by helping to serve the food and portion control!
We are now working with St. Matthew’s Project to run a full-scale food project over the summer holidays in Brockwell Park. A big thanks to Lee, Marcia and Kimberley! |
