Mercread Youth Centre community kitchen renovation

Aim

To renovate the Mercread youth centre kitchen to make it a more usable space for cooking with groups of young people and community groups.

Who are we?

The Mercread Youth Centre sits in the centre of Seaford and is the perfect space for youth activities with a sports hall, large communal space with sofas, a pool table, a football table, table tennis, a cafe bar area and a good sized kitchen. 

We are an independent CIO relying on funding and income from hall hire to keep the centre running. We currently run two youth clubs with an aim to add more within the next year. At our youth clubs, young people can take part in sports, craft, cooking activities and much more. It's free to attend and a hot meal and all activities are provided by experienced youth workers.

 The centre is also used for a range of activities including: football, basketball, army cadets, Seaford youth forum, exercise and dance groups, a Downs syndrome support group, a Repair cafe, Seaford preloved school uniform exchange and Charlie Bear's nursery. 

A community lunch is provided alongside the Repair cafe once a month which feeds up to 100 people. 

Why are we fundraising?

When we ask young people what skills they would like to learn, cooking is always top of the list. Our kitchen is a good space but needs work to allow groups to use it for cooking. The oven doesn't work properly and a recent environmental health inspection highlighted that we need to upgrade certain aspects of the kitchen including installing an extractor fan.

The Mercread youth centre is fundraising to renovate the kitchen to make it a more usable space for cooking with the young people attending youth activities and also for cookery workshops and cooking for the wider community.

We would like to provide extra cookery workshops for young people in school holidays and weekends as well as in the youth sessions during the week. 

We know space for groups to cook together is hard to find in Seaford. Once completed, the kitchen will provide a much needed space in the town for providing community meals and as a space for HAF projects and other community groups to use for their activities. We would also like the kitchen to be used during the week day to bring groups together to learn more cookery skills.

How we'll use the money raised

We aim to reuse parts of the kitchen where we can. New features will include adding extra floor to ceiling cupboards with built in ovens, installing an extractor fan, a double sink and a wider central island. We will add an adjustable height worktop to meet a variety of needs.

We will share skills with members of the youth clubs by inviting them to help build the cupboards for the kitchen.

We also need more equipment. 

A donation of £3 can buy a cheese grater

£4 can buy a sieve

£7.50 can buy 10 wooden spoons

£10 can buy 5 mixing bowls

£20 can buy 5 vegetable peelers

£50 can buy a set of saucepans

£100 can buy a kitchen cupboard

Thank you for helping to give our young people the opportunity to learn important skills that they will carry with them through the rest of their lives.

Words from  the Mayor of Seaford, Councillor Olivia Honeyman who is supporting the fundraising for the kitchen: The Mercread Youth Centre is one of my chosen charities to support this year. The Mercread Youth Centre is situated in the Seaford Community and is a great asset to the town to help young people learn various skills.  Cooking is a very essential skill, and the existing kitchen is in need of updating, please help to fund a new kitchen.

This project successfully funded on 27th December 2023