Halfway to full bellies

Aim

During the pandemic, THCC cooked 6,000+ hot meals for the needy in the community. Our kitchen needs urgent attention for us to continue.

Tang Hall Community Centre sits amid one of England’s 10% most deprived areas. Issues within the local community include social isolation and health inequality, and extreme poverty/families on low incomes.  

The cooking events we run under normal circumstances, our community cafes, and the various classes/courses delivered by those hiring our rooms, make a significant, positive contribution to these problems. 

During the first lockdown, together with our wonderful volunteers, we: 

~ Sent out 1,137 food parcels, prescriptions and random acts of kindness to those isolating 

~ Cooked and delivered more than 6,000 meals through our 'Isolation Grub Club'

~ Supported residents at home who were suffering from Covid-19, giving them the nutrients and hope to survive 

~ Sent out over 2,000 toilet rolls when nobody had any 

~ Made dozens of phone calls every single day, to check on people trapped at home 

Some residents have told us that they don't know how they'd have survived lockdown without the centre's support and intervention. 

The National Lottery has kindly awarded us enough money to create meals via the Isolation Grub Club until mid-2021, which we are continuing to do in conjunction with Yourcafe and Tang Hall Big Local. However - and this is the crux of our plea/project - the kitchen facilities that we inherited when we took over the centre cannot cope for much longer creating meals on such a large scale. Some aspects of our facilities don't work or fail to meet today's health and safety regulations.

We have the ingredients, we have the chefs, we need the tools and equipment necessary to continue feeding the needy and vulnerable amongst the 9,250 residents in our community. Some of our residents are unable to use the phone to order food from alternative offerings, due to dementia or other health issues. They have no idea how to book a supermarket slot. The only time they speak to another living being is when they interact with volunteers of the centre. Many residents have no network to rely on for support; because they’re not officially listed as vulnerable they’re effectively ‘slipping through the net’, even though they need the help and support of others just as urgently.  

Our income disappeared overnight in March 2020, when we were forced to close the centre to the public. With further lockdowns and social distancing regulations still in place, our income will continue to be heavily impacted. 

Health inequality in this area means that residents live, on average, five years less than people a few streets away, according to local indices. A nutritious diet is one factor that families living in poverty, the elderly, those self-isolating, the disabled, and people living alone struggle with; the Isolation Grub Club has a waiting list for our support. Our residents need good, wholesome, free food if they're to survive this pandemic, and we need adequate equipment and facilities to enable this. 

We have already raised two-thirds of what is needed to refurbish the kitchen to the high standards we've come to expect at the centre. We now need to raise the remainder.

Thank you to Petrol Hoers for the use of their music in the pledge video.

This project successfully funded on 23rd March 2021