A London council has opened its kitchen up to a foodbank to provide meals for vulnerable children.
Brent Council has become the first authority to give their kitchen facilities over to London’s Community Kitchen to provide 50,000 meals for vulnerable children this summer.
London’s Community Kitchen is a community initiative that believes in zero waste and zero hunger.
The community initiative is planning to use the free space to help ensure children who are entitled to free school meals during term time are also guaranteed nutritious meals during the six week summer holiday.
The meals are going to be made from around 80 to 90% of ingredients that would have gone to waste.
This means that tons of food waste will not go to landfill but would be used to feed the local children.
Councillor Muhammed Butt, The Leader of Brent Council said: “We are proud to be supporting the invaluable work of London’s Community Kitchen at a time when the cost-of-living crisis continues to push more and more families to breaking point.
“This partnership is not only working to tackle child hunger, it is also helping people into good quality, secure employment.
“Through this initiative, 20 people who were previously unemployed have now received Level 1 hospitality training and have jobs cooking nourishing meals for these children.”
According to the Office of National Statistics, between April 2021 and March 2022 unemployment levels for the area were at 6.1% which was higher than the London average of 5.4%.
Founder of London’s Community Kitchen Taz Khan said: “Our vision is zero waste and zero hunger – we believe everybody should have access to free, if not affordable food.
“We need projects like this in every London borough with all local authorities supporting their local voluntary organisations to thrive.”
Dr Debbie Weekes-Bernard London’s Deputy Mayor for Communities and Social Justice applauded the scheme and believes that other authorities should adopt similar strategies.
Brent Council has opened its doors to London’s Community Kitchen in order to feed children during the summer holidays.
Featured image: Brent Council
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