We run St Ives Community Foodshare and on Fridays we distribute the supermarket surplus from the carpark alongside the community orchard. To celebrate World food day on the 16th October 2020 we decided to move the collection up to the orchard and cooked up some hot food for anyone who came up.
Nearly all the food was made from meat and veg that would have been thrown away plus some veg donated by local growers. A big pot of sausage stew was pre made in the Rugby club kitchen and a veg stew was cooked up in our massive cast-iron potjie pot over the fire.
Some people brought up home-baked food, some musicians magically appeared, a bonfire was lit and the stars came out. A beautiful evening in the community orchard, with lots of space to either eat on the grass, at the new picnic tables or around the fire.
We didn’t advertise it much as we knew we’d get the people who normally come collect food and due to Covid restrictions we didn’t want it to turn into an ‘Event’, but word had definitely got out and a good number of people came up plus some who were just passing by. Quite a few kids came over from the skatepark and were quite amazed to be able to get free food. There were signs reminding people to respect social distancing and arrows directing people through the cooking area around the old Elder tree so we kept spaces clear. We hope to have many more evenings like this in the orchard.
Thank you to all the volunteers who helped by chopping veg, cooking, carrying stuff up, clearing up after.
2020
