D’s Volunteering at Food Cycle

Written by Dominique Rock

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Picture this. It’s December 30th 2022, and as I, alongside millions of other people around the globe sat scribbling away at my list of new year’s resolutions, I suddenly made a vow to myself.

2023 would be the year of doing, rather than just saying.

The year of walking the walk, rather than just talking the talk.

And it’s this approach I was going to take to all things – new-year-resolutions-come-2023-bucket-list included.

Fast-forward four weeks, two days and four-point-five hours later, and I’ve just finished my first stint as a volunteer at FoodCycle East London. Something that has been on my new-years-resolutions-come-2020/21/22/-bucket-list for far too long.

And did I love it? Hell yeah.

Food Cycle is an amazing London charity, on a quest to end food poverty and loneliness by utilising spare kitchen spaces and surplus food across the community. The result: a delicious-three-course-meal and delectable company, delivered by the many hands of FoodCycle volunteers across the capital, in local communities every week.

In 2022 alone FoodCycle saved 200+ tonnes of food going to waste, through the help of 5.5k volunteers across London, coming together to donate over 90,000 hours of their time.

And there are loads of ways to get involved:

  • If talking is your thing, then a Check-in and Chat Volunteer might be the way to go for you
  • Or if like me, you fancy channelling your inner chef, then a Cooking Volunteer could be more of your bag
  •  There’s even Food Collection and Delivery Volunteering up for grabs for the driving fans out there, where you pick up surplus food from shops and drop it off to the community kitchens

I signed myself up to be a Cooking Volunteer and was appointed Head of Dessert.

Under-the-supervision of the Cooking Team Leader, our culinary crew of five whipped up a vegetable soup for starters, mango and coriander curry for main, and yours truly brought up the rear, (save the best for last and all that), with a mango and banana upside down cake.

In the space of the fastest four hours ever, forty people in Walthamstow were served and yummy meal.

Would I do it again –  100%. I’m already signed up for my next slot.

And you can too – it’s easy to volunteer. Just register your interest, watch the three induction videos and complete the Health & Safety questionnaire and you’re good to go. Next up find a slot in the role of your choice, and boom, you’re on your way to volunteering.

The takeaway from this post?

May be 2023 continue to be the year of walking the walk, so that we can tick of those achievements, big and small, that we’ve set our sight on.

There is no time like the present, and there is no better time to start than now, so let’s go forth and get things down.

Thanks to everyone at FoodCycle Walthamstow for making my first experience a great one. See you all in a few weeks!

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