Our Community Food Projects
The Scottish Land Fund award that enabled us to buy the Crunchy Carrot premises in 2019 also funded the hiring of a Development Officer for a year. This role began in October 2019 and gained an additional three years’ funding from The National Lottery’s Community Fund in May 2021.
The role covers:
Outreach projects in schools and community groups;
Partnership working with local organisations to teach food skills and increase accessibility to good, sustainable food;
Resource reduction;
Communications;
Supporting the shop’s profitability to ensure a robust business and the continuation of community work;
Fundraising.
Our Community Projects
Sunny Soups
Sunny Soups is designed to tackle local food waste. This small, supportive group is made up of volunteers from the community who meet weekly to cook together. We are also grateful for support from Dunbar Parish Church who have for years given us free use their hall and kitchen to meet up and cook in.
We make good quality, healthy food from fresh surplus ingredients. We use surplus fruit and vegetables from the Crunchy as well as other shops, farms and gardens. This is then stocked in a community freezer for anyone to take for free.
This free source of food is available to all, with the emphasis on our community working together to reduce food waste.
We are grateful to the following funders who make Sunny Soups possible:
The National Lottery Community Fund; Dunbar & East Linton Area Partnership; Vegware; Dunbar Parish Church.
Sunny’s Kitchen
This weekly community meal launched in June 2021, and is held at the Bleachingfield Centre: some people come along to help cook, some to eat, some for both. We’ve had 21 volunteers in the last year, and around 60 guests, with many folk coming regularly. We’re up to around 30 attendees each week, and we use as much surplus produce in our meals as possible.
We have had help from The Ridge, and volunteer support from QMU paramedic science students undergoing voluntary placements with us.
We use surplus produce from FareShare, as well as freshly picked ingredients from The Ridge’s community gardens when available. So far we’ve used close to a tonne of surplus in Sunny’s Kitchen, both that which is used in the meals and extra fresh produce that we regularly give away.
Children’s Food Activities
Our Development Officer runs a range of children’s food and cooking activities locally, all designed to increase children’s familiarity and acceptance of fruit and veg and teach basic skills.
KidsFoodJourney after-school activity courses are made up of year-groups aged between 4 and 11. The course was designed to tackle neophobia, the common fear of trying new foods, and to teach children how to re-frame their approach to trying new foods from away from fear and towards curiosity.
For a full introduction to the classes, as well as six lesson plans published when a course had to be cancelled during the Covid-19 pandemic, see our blog post here.
Cook Club at Dunbar Primary School is a five-week practical cooking course that teaches children a range of basic cooking skills. Children grow in confidence in preparing a tasting a range of fresh foods, taking their meals home with them to have for dinner.
Holiday and other activities include one-off seasonal cooking classes and outdoor fire cooking sessions.
Feedback from parents has indicated that children who come to our sessions are more open to trying new foods at home, and begin eating a wider range of food including more fruit and vegetables.
See photos from our sessions on our Facebook and Instagram pages.