Community Kitchen Regent's Park Estate

Community Kitchen was designed with Community Champions and Young Guardians as a response to the increased urgent need for support relating to the cost of living, foodinsecurity and access to free warm and safe spaces for the community. It was piloted in December 2022 and became weekly in February 2023, until August 2023. It thenrestarted in October 2023 until April 2024. This was in partnership with Fitzrovia Youth in Action, Old Diorama Arts Centre, Camden Detached Youth Team,The Euston Partnership and Surma Centre.

There were 32 community kitchens held between 2023 and 2024 – 12,532 meals were served to149 individuals or families. Kitchens were held weekly at Surma Centre,providing a hot meal per person in a household, but also provided free entertainment, arts and crafts, games and a safe, warm space to have fun together. The Kitchen became a small community of its own, with families providing peer support to each other and accessing some services who held popup stalls. Local councillors met with residents and held impromptu drop ins and volunteered serving food, health and wellbeing or financial support advisers were able to reach out into the community and local business owners and supporters occasionally supported the kitchen by donating items for the community. People of all ages and backgrounds spent time together weekly,children dancing with members of Surma Centre’s older people’s programme, Old Diorama has a resident artist based within the project, Fitzrovia Youth in Action youth volunteers and community champions running art activities, bingo or music or other games and activities. It was a fantastic demonstration of how our community can work together to look after each other. In summer, we held a special outdoor Community Kitchen BBQ where we served over 700 burgers and members of the community who may not have been attending Community Kitchen were also able to join.

In October 2023, we also replicated the Community Kitchen model in Somers Town, working with their local councillors, Somers Town Youth Centre, Somers Town Big Local and Somers Town Community Association. We supported the teams to understand the model and adapt it for the needs of Somers Town residents, supporting delivery in the initial stages until February 2024, where we handed over the model to the amazing partners. There are now two kitchens in Somers Town, serving over600 people per week between them. The partners will continue to adapt the model as needed and make it their own.

The final Community Kitchen in Regent’s Park Estate was a Community Kitchen Iftar on 27^th March- held with Old Diorama Arts Centre, The Euston Partnership, Hopscotch Asian Women’s Centre, Camden Detached Youth Team and Regent’s Place our Community Iftar. Over 375 guests from different backgrounds joined together inthe spirit of community and joined those observing Ramadan as they broke fast to share a meal together. We also had art activities led by artists of the Story Trail and activities to help all our community understand and celebrate what Ramadan is and young people shared why Ramadan is important to them. All the food was jointly provided by Drummond Street businesses Chutneys, DrummondVilla, Masala King, Optix, Diwana, Rupashi Bangla and supported by Vantage,TFactor, Regent’s Place and Including their cleaning service JPC and security services CIS Security. You can see wonderful photos and our film here https://www.fya.org.uk/event/community-iftar/ and brilliant photos from Old Diorama Arts Centre here

Community Kitchen on its own does not address the deeper systemic issues relating to the cost of living, food insecurity and poverty in our area. Community Champions are therefore looking at more sustainable, longer-term models and are working with Cooperation Town to develop food coops in the area. Food cooperatives will increase resident ownership and participation in addressing concerns, but also be more sustainable long term regarding funding and resourcing. There will also be bigger savings directly for residents! We have had some initial challenges regarding accessing surplus to have an increased saving for families but hope to start pilots as soon as possible. We will also be working in partnership with Surma Centre, Third Age Project and Regent’s Park Time Bank and Old Diorama Arts Centre throughout the next year regarding Community Food Growing, socials and the food cooperatives.

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