Food for Life’s Cook and Share campaign has been timely for Ashley and the team at Ashfield District Council.

Ashley is the Food Coordinator locally and offers support to voluntary and community groups that help to build a sustainable food network across the feeding Ashfield Network.

With six food banks and four food clubs, the Feeding Ashfield Network work hard to support people across Ashfield, an area of quite stark deprivation in places, so the need for food support is widespread.

“Cook and Share has been a good way to get information out without any stigma. Local families have joined us for a Halloween party or lunch club and then we have been able to sign-post them to services and support they can access here in Ashfield. Cook and Share month is a great way to share and engage new people in our community.”

Ashley has been making connections with the assistance of the Cook and Share campaign. She’s worked with the Academy Transformation Trust in Sutton to put on a Cook and Share event with free Feel Good Families Halloween activities, followed by a disco where families were able to enjoy food prepared by catering students earlier in the day. She has done a ‘take over’ of the local Food Friday Facebook page, where residents and organisations share recipes, and themed them to the Cook and Share weekly themes.

Across social media they have been sharing the Cook and Share weekly themes: Cooking for People, Planet, Pleasure and Pocket, and signposting to campaign resources and recipes such as Sticky Ginger Buns and the popular Soup Chooser chart.

“Cook and Share is a way for us to connect with families and give a fresh look to our regular events. It has been great to be involved in a national campaign and use it locally. Without the generous support of the groups within the Feeding Ashfield network, what we have achieved would not be possible.”