13 Sep 2018
Whilst the Club was closed for the summer break, work continued behind the scenes with the Club kitchen being completely revamped. The builders were hard at work for two weeks installing a new kitchen and completely transforming the old space into a new area with sleek worktops, wall tiles and units.
Huge thanks to The Beatrice Laing Trust, The Edward Harvist Trust and a wonderful local company for their generous help with this project.
The old kitchen
Creating space for the new kitchen
The new kitchen!
The kitchen reopened and was ready to use at the start of the new term. Club members have already been able to enjoy the new space with ‘Bake Off’ activities and cookery lessons.
The importance of the kitchen at St Andrew's Club
On Wednesday evenings members are always prompt in putting their names down to take part in one of the three cooking workshops.Thanks to the new kitchen configuration each workshop can now accommodate up to eight members, so at least 24 members benefit. It is one of the most popular activities at St Andrew’s. The cooking classes for young people aged 10 to 18, teach a range of skills relating to food, nutrition, healthy eating, meal planning and food budgeting. The ability to produce basic home cooked food is an invaluable life skill.These basic skills can influence children’s food choices for the rest of their lives.
Weekly Bake Off and Masterchef challenges are also run from the kitchen, involving creativity and new ingredients.
Cooking sessions can also provide an opportunity to carry out important youth work with those members who are experiencing challenges and difficulties. Working alongside children and young people in a creative way can help build positive and trusting relationships and foster a sense of wellbeing.
The kitchen is a vital part of St Andrew’s Club life as it is also where youth workers can prepare comfort food to accompany challenging discussion sessions for members as a hook to encourage them to sit down and talk about issues such as money management, drug prevention or social media bullying.
We are lucky to have a long-standing volunteer who once a week runs ‘Leslie’s Kitchen’ to cook for up to 30 members at his own cost.
The kitchen is one of the busiest areas of the Club and is in constant use from when we open to when we close, every night of operation. Thanks to our funders, members can now learn to cook in this great new space.