This past month has seen some
great achievements from the Food Waste Collective in terms of raising awareness
of our activities and helping to inspire others to do the same. We were
nominated for newspaper the Argus’ Green Project of the Year Award (1) by Brighton
and Hove Food Partnership and Tai Ray-Jones (many thanks to them), and although
we did not win being shortlisted was an achievement in itself.
Community Stars
It
seems to be the season to be awarded things; just a couple of weeks later we
were invited to another awards ceremony, the Community Works Sector Stars
Awards (2) held at the Brighthelm Centre on North Road. This time the FWC was
nominated for ‘Small Group, Big Achiever’, sharing the awards ceremony with a
plethora of exciting projects from community gardens such as Moulsecoomb Forest
Garden (3) to support networks such as Grassroots Suicide Prevention (4) and
creative projects such as Sing for Better Health (5).
As
people generally interested in food and healthy eating the Food Waste
Collective representatives – Vera Zakharov, Martina Mina, Caitriona Donohoe, me
(Charlotte Haworth) and our Food Project Photographer David Ashwanden – were
very pleased with the catering at the awards event, which was all vegan and
gluten free. In spite of (or more likely because of) this, it was all also
incredibly tasty.
Having
partaken in the fabulous fare we settled down for the announcements of the
winners, hearing many inspirational stories of groups around the city as the
evening went on. Then it came to the ‘Small Group, Big Achiever’ category; and
the winner? The Food Waste Collective!
We felt
our award was justified by some of the information we shared about the FWC’s
activities; for example, how we have helped to redistribute five tonnes of food
which would otherwise have gone to waste. Neither the award nor the
redistribution would have been possible without the support of Community Works,
and of course of our parent group, Hanover Action for Sustainable Living (HASL)
(6).
More redistribution
This
‘five tonnes’ figure has since risen; last Monday 24th November saw
our winter Good Food for Good Causes (GF4GC) event, during which we managed to
redistribute just under two tonnes more of food, mainly dry goods such as
flour, lentils and barley donated by Infinity Wholesale, as well as fruit and
vegetables from TG Fruits and bread and pastries from Real Patisserie.
This
was the first GF4GC we have held in the Open Market (7), which is a much more
public space than the old Municipal Market which we have previously used. The
public aspect meant that as well as helping out the approximately 30 charities
and community groups who came to receive food on the day, we also had an
information stand to help inform unsuspecting members of the public about our
work.
To aid
us in the public relations aspect we came up with the idea of ‘interactive
bunting’: bunting triangles which members of the Food Waste Collective Craft
Contingent had decorated with various food facts, statistics or inspirational
messages and strung up around the redistribution area. The ‘interactive’ aspect
was that, with the aid of permanent markers and paint pens we were encouraging
volunteers, recipients, and random passersby to make their own food-inspired
bunting triangles. The results ended up being rather beautiful.
Another
great thing about doing the GF4GC in a more public place was that we could
share with the public all of our partner organisations such as Plan Zheroes (8),
the Gleaning Network (9), Food Warriors (10) and Brighton’s newest food redistribution
organisation, the Real Junk Food Project (11), who had their very first event
last Thursday at Theatre Uncut (12), a series of free plays with free
intercepted-food hot dinner from the Real Junk Food Project, with proceeds
split between the Project and Amnesty International.
The
Open Market traders was in a generally celebratory mood, with every single
trader there donating a high-quality foody gift to our festive hamper, which we
entered every volunteer and charity representative into a prize draw to win.
All in
all, a rather successful month, with lots of happy Brighton and Hove residents
now able to feed themselves better, and many more feeling inspired to take
action to tackle the incongruities between the large amounts of food being
wasted in the city, and the large number of hungry people here.
References
1.
Argus, 2014. ‘Night of the Shining Stars’. Argus, 3/11/14. http://www.theargus.co.uk/news/11574968.Night_of_the_shining_Stars/ - retrieved 1/12/14
2.
Community Works, 2014. ‘Sector Star Awards
Celebrate the City’s Amazing Community and Voluntary Activity’. http://www.bhcommunityworks.org.uk/sector-star-awards-winners-2014/
- retrieved 1/12/14
3.
Moulsecoomb Forest Garden, 2014. ‘About’. http://www.seedybusiness.org/ -
retrieved 1/12/14
4.
Grassroots Suicide Prevention, 2014. ‘Welcome’. http://www.prevent-suicide.org.uk/
- retrieved 1/12/14
5.
Mind, 2014. ‘Sing for Better Health Groups
Brighton and Hove’. http://www.mindcharity.co.uk/mind-directory/sing-health-groups/
- retrieved 1/12/14
6.
HASL, 2014. ‘About Us’. http://www.hasl.org.uk/ - retrieved 1/12/14
7.
Brighton Open Market, 2014. ‘Wlecome’. http://www.brightonopenmarket.co.uk/
- retrieved 1/12/14
8.
Plan Zheroes, 2014. ‘The Idea’. http://www.planzheroes.org/ - retrieved
1/12/14
9.
Feedbback UK, 2014. ‘Gleaning Network’. http://feedbackglobal.org/campaigns/gleaning-network/
- retrieved 1/12/14
10.
Facebook, 2014. ‘Food Warriors!!’ https://www.facebook.com/groups/foodwarriors/?fref=ts
- retrieved 1/12/14
11.
Facebook, 2014. ‘The Real Junk Food Project
Brighton’. https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Real-Junk-Food-Project-Brighton/246123485595051?fref=ts
- retrieved 1/12/14
12.
Brighton Theatre Uncut, 2014. ‘About’. https://brightontheatreuncut.wordpress.com/
- retrieved 1/12/14
