Kitchen classes provide access for everyone

LOCATED within the Ballarat Neighbourhood Centre, volunteer fuelled Our Kitchen Social Enterprise is promoting learning while producing high-quality meals.

The effort is based around hospitality and kitchen classes on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays with the Feed Local Free Food program operating on Fridays.

Our Kitchen’s workforce development advisor Donna Tucker said unlike the vocational kitchen courses, the free food program is completely volunteer run.

“The kitchen is staffed by the students who are learning on the job and our output which culminates on Fridays where we have the free food program,” she said.

“Although it’s a great way to learn basic kitchen skills, a lot of the students come in to practice their conversational English and be a part of a team.”

The initiative is currently supported by a range of community partners including SecondBite, Ballarat Community Health, FareShare, Hidden Orchard, Food Access Network, the Department of Health and Human Services, the Salvation Army, Coles, Aldi, The Freight Bar, City of Ballarat, the Ballarat Foundation.

Though each of these organisations have a hand in helping to supply, fund or distribute the free food project, Ms Tucker said it wouldn’t be possible without the volunteers.

“At the moment we’re doing around 260 meals a week and each of those go out with a hamper, we get a lot of bread, fruit and veg and try to provide a staples pack,” she said.

“There’s no screening process, you don’t have to prove your starving, if you need the help, we’ll help you and you can get a free meal.”

With a diverse cohort of volunteers on board, Ms Tucker said the project is consistently serving up healthy, well rounded and interesting meals.

“Sometimes the volunteers will bring beautiful recipes for curries and dahl, depending on who is on and no matter what it is, we try to work with what is donated,” she said.

“A lot of our volunteers are previous students or their friends and we currently have more volunteers than space to keep them.”

Chef and tutor David Bending utilises his professional cooking and management experience to guide the team to create fun recipes in a positive environment.

“Dave, our chef, is a bit of a magician and can make amazing stuff from anything that comes in,” Ms Tucker said.

“It’s almost like a family, Dave is talented but he’s also an amazing teacher and fosters a real sense of team in the kitchen.”

Although the cooking component is his forte, Bending said the best thing is the sense of support everyone gives each other in the kitchen.

“We’re all from different walks of life, different education levels but we all support each other, that’s what social enterprising is all about,” he said.