Reducing social isolation and preparing food with UKHarvest and Hyde residents

Shop, Chop & Chat is a new initiative hosted by UKHarvest’s education team: NourishEd. Bringing food, inspiration and some good conversation, the NourishEd team have worked with and supported many of the Hyde residents that can often find it challenging to get together and share time and experiences, for a range of reasons.

Funded by Hyde, the Shop, Chop and Chat project has allowed a lot of residents to make new connections with their neighbours and learn new skills in the kitchen, giving them the confidence to cook healthy nutritious meals for themselves. One resident at Roxburgh House shared that ‘We enjoyed the morning; it was very interesting. It is good that you can give the food to share with friends and family.’

Providing a free shop at each session helps to tackle food insecurity and the cost-of-living crisis. The shop enables the residents to choose a carrier bag packed with food, including plenty of healthy fruit and veg for preparing their nourishing meals at home. There is also a chopping service provided by the team for anyone who wants to take hard vegetables but might have difficulty preparing them. Cooking demonstrations with plenty of discussion, tasting and sharing a hot meal make the sessions a warm, friendly and educational place to be. Some of the residents also enjoy getting stuck in with repacking ingredients for the UKHarvest Community Food Hubs around West Sussex.

During a recent session, one group member notes that “I am hugely impressed with this organised initiative to help the elderly and people with life difficulties, become inspired to make healthy and quick meals and life changes in the kitchen, especially with ailments such as diabetes”.

Corinne Kay, Scheme Officer said “The sessions have been a brilliant success with our residents. Not only are they a fantastic opportunity for people to come together and have a chat over a cup of tea in our lounge, but they then all prepare a nutritious, tasty meal. Our residents loved making ‘one pot chicken’ and they said that they were looking forward to sharing this low-cost and tasty recipe with friends and family.

“UKHarvest has lots of ideas to generate inclusion in our scheme and we hope to be able to roll it out to all schemes, with much-needed nourishment for residents’ minds, bodies and souls.”

As a result of the successful programme, UKHarvest are welcoming a group of the residents from Lacy House to join the volunteer team. Joining Sarah in the kitchen to prepare and package food donated to the charity, the Lacy House residents will become part of an ever-growing team of volunteers, enabling new experiences and new connections to take place and enriching the Shop, Chop and Chat programme further.

Sian Georgiou, Educational Facilitator has coordinated the Shop, Chop and Chat sessions has shared ‘This has been an incredible opportunity for UKHarvest. Our relationship with Hyde has been strengthened by the acknowledgment of the need to ensure that their residents have community, company and fun while living in Hyde’s properties. Social isolation is a growing problem in the UK, and creating programmes like Shop, Chop and Chat, we can encourage everyone to get involved, learn new cooking skills and make new friends.’

To find out more about how you, or your organisation can help support UKHarvest through food, financial or time donations or if you know of a community group or housing association that would benefit from working with us, please visit our website https://www.ukharvest.org.uk/.