This week saw the 6000th home cooked meals delivered into our community.
Our Community Meals Team shop, prepare, cook, pack and deliver home cooked meals and desserts every Friday for the more isolated in our community, helping to fight malnutrition, hunger and loneliness.
This service is not means tested and a donation of £3.00 is suggested for those who can afford to.
The recipients are generally elderly, less mobile and living on their own, but this is not always the case. People can apply for the meals themselves, or sometimes they are referred by KAMP’s elderly care team.
The menu’s change weekly, with our cooks putting a lot of thought into what the beneficiaries like and don’t like. They also accommodate for some allergies and food intolerances, such as gluten free meals.
To keep costs down, they also see what surplus stock we have from food donations. Our stock takers work hard behind the scenes to keep our stocks up to date and relevant.
It’s not only the dietary aspect of the home cooked meals that our recipients benefit from. They also look forward to the weekly phone call to discuss the week’s menu, along with whatever else is up for discussion that week!
The Friday doorstep chat is another highlight to many of their weeks, where our volunteers might be one of the few friendly faces they’ve seen all week.
Our cooks (after passing their Level II Food Hygiene online course), decide their menu’s, and cook the meals from home on a Thursday; pack them into the foil trays, store them overnight and bring them to our hub the following morning for labeling and delivering.
The dispatch team co-ordinates and delivers up to 30 meals each week in and around the Pewsey area.
This is an amazing achievement week in and week out – whatever the weather – and is testament to the dedication of our volunteers.
On behalf of the beneficiaries, a massive thank you to all involved. It is a much appreciated service.
It is a big commitment for the cooks and recently we have had a few more sign up and finish the course, so thanks to you guys too. If you think you have the time and the skills then please do sign up as we always welcome more. Ideally our cooks would be cooking either main or dessert once every 6-8 weeks. Let’s see if we can make this happen.
To volunteer please sign up here https://ourpca.uk/volunteer/
Or, if you would be interested in having a home cooked meal,for yourself, or a loved one please apply here https://ourpca.uk/get-help/
