Cooking up a treat for the Friday Club
Our Lettings team and a few other colleagues had the pleasure of cooking lunch for C4WS Homeless Project’s Friday Club members.
The Friday Club is a weekly drop-in service that provides companionship, a hot and healthy lunch and professional welfare support to homeless and vulnerable people. The club is co-hosted by C4WS Homeless Project and King’s Cross Methodist Church.
Our day started at 10am with a meet and greet, plus a health and safety talk from one of the permanent volunteers. It was clear that this is a popular event as there were members already queuing outside for a 12pm start; the club runs at a maximum capacity of 50 people and is first come, first serve.
After the briefing, we got straight to work with the food prep. We had already decided on cooking cottage pie with veg, garlic bread and mince pies for pudding. We soon realised that we may have been over ambitious and due to limited oven space, we turned the meal into deconstructed cottage pie. This worthy cause is obviously in need of funding for better cooking equipment, which would also open up a wider variety of menu options… apparently the members are getting quite bored of bangers and mash (fair enough)!
The atmosphere in the kitchen was fun and festive; with everyone mucking in with the chopping and washing up. Once that part was done, we could then get onto the creative side of making our take on cottage pie.
At 12pm the pressure was on… the members had started to gather, enjoying a cup of tea and biscuit before we were due to serve lunch at 12:30pm. Time went very quickly and before we knew it, it was time to serve! There was a last minute panic that the potatoes weren’t going to be cooked (another result of poor cooking facilities) but we made it just in time!
We organised a production line of Ali on mincemeat, Amy C on vege mince, Sola on potatoes, Rosa P on peas, Amy W on garlic bread (which we discovered to our surprise, was not very popular!) and Rosa W on cheese (very popular). Last, but definitely not least, Davina was at the ready with the mince pies, cream and ice cream.
We were introduced by the C4WS team leader and were welcomed warmly by the hungry members. Serving then started and was greatly received- with many coming up for 2nds, 3rds and even 4ths! Which apparently rarely happens- the members were thrilled with the menu choice!
During and after serving we had the chance to chat with the members, which was really great to be able to do. They were all very friendly and it was interesting to hear what meals go down best and what they would like to have in the future… bubble and squeak, with Toad in The Hole would be a definite crowd pleaser!
We all thoroughly enjoyed the day- it was a perfect team bonding exercise and lifted all our spirits. We would highly recommend any team to get involved with this.
Thank you to Rosa Parker for organising and pre ordering the food, which was all ready for us when we arrived.