St Luke’s Community Centre is hosting children from Prior Weston School in Whitecross Street for weekly sessions about cooking and gardening this term. The children, aged 5-8, will learn about healthy eating and cooking, composting, waste and where food comes from in specially-tailored sessions in St Luke’s Edible Yard and Cookery School.

The initiative is subsidised through income from private hire of Central Street Cookery School, which is put back into activities that help the local community. The children will harvest fresh salad from St Luke’s Edible Yard for their lunch and eat outdoors. Planned activities also include meeting the chickens, tasting herbs, learning about lifecycles and seeing first-hand the connection between where food comes from and what we eat.

Michael Ryan, CEO of St Luke’s, says: “Part of our community commitment is to ensure people of all ages can come in and enjoy our Centre, our fully-equipped Cookery School and thriving outdoor spaces. This is a great initiative to get local kids thinking about the food they eat and learning new skills in the heart of their community.”

Acting Deputy Head of Prior Weston Bev Newman says: “The children have been excited by the cookery and gardening sessions they have been having at St Luke’s. Each class has returned to school full of wonder and excitement that they can’t wait to share. It has created a real buzz in the classrooms and been the spark to produce some great discussions and work about urban gardens and what you can grow in them. They have also enjoyed sharing the tasty muffins that they cooked. We are looking forward to working closely with the Centre in the future.”  

Notes to editors:

Press contact at St Luke’s: Lisa Burrell, Communications Manager, 07505 380586.

St Luke’s Community Centre (slpt.org.uk): A welcoming, neighbourly community centre in south Islington, London. It provides a space for local people to gather and socialise, and for St Luke’s and other organisations to deliver services and activities to benefit the local community, including lunch club for the over 55s, a café, an online centre, art & dance studios, kids clubs, a salon & therapy room, a unique cookery school, an employment hub, a members’ club suite and a variety of meeting rooms.

 

The Edible Yard: The Edible Yard was established in 2017 from St Luke’s old car park following major residential development on the site. It’s a community food growing space at the back of the community centre. It features large raised beds with hundreds of edible plants, greenhouses, sheds, several composting methods, a wormery, a wildlife patch, a pizza oven, outdoor eating areas and a flock of five happy and chatty hens.