During this period, we cooked 453 meals, inspired by cuisines around the world including Poland, Hungary, Iran, Jamaica, Ghana, Italy, Caribbean, Nigeria and Europe. During the cold winter month homemade soups and stews were very popular. One rough sleeper made focaccia bread regularly to go with the meals, experimenting with the recipe and enjoying the praise. This really demonstrated to us the benefit of our cooking sessions which the 1910 Trust funded for us, as this gentleman had not engaged in any services or other clients, but cooking gave him the confidence and trust to talk to us and he is now living in his own flat
During March as the weather improved clients prepared sandwiches and energy bars for our hiking trips to Pen Y Fan, Four Waterfalls, Brecon, and Suga Loaf Mountain working on our current focus of improving mental health through exercise and diet.
To this end we have also been fortunate to have been given an allotment and poly tunnel to start growing our own vegetables to cook in Solutions to supplement our pantry in the future. We have used part of our funds to buy vegetable seeds,
Impact
We have had 1134 people coming into the service during this quarter.
3 rough sleepers were accommodated in their own flats, 63 were prison leavers made homeless on release and 13 were asylum seekers with the right to remain fleeing hostile countries but not accommodated.
All of the beneficiaries and staff are so grateful to the 1910 Trust for giving us such wonderful donation which has brought enormous benefits to our homeless community and enabled so many people to feel a sense of worth, the motivation to move on with their lives, an interest in food and diet and realize cooking skills they never knew they had. Cooking brings people together socially, forms friendship groups, trust, shared experiences, support each other and it has been a privilege for the staff to have witnessed it thanks to your financial support.