Moray Food Plus, Forres Area Community Trust and Moray Firth Credit Union to run free community meals and reduced cost pantry from Forres Town Hall
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FREE family meals will be offered at Forres Town Hall from February 21.
Moray Food Plus (MFP) is going to cook high quality dinners once-a-month for anyone who books in between 4pm and 5.30pm - attendees will not be asked for payment but donations to help cover costs will be welcome.
Forres Area Community Trust (FACT) volunteer and community engagement co-ordinator, Lindsey Standring, confirmed the two-course meals will be available on the third Monday of every month from February to June between 4 and 6pm.
She said: “Volunteers are being trained to prepare and serve two courses, such as mains spaghetti bolognaise, mince and tatties with seasonal vegetables or sausage pasta bake with deserts fruit crumble, fruit sponge and other family favourites.The meals will use surplus items donated by supermarkets via redistribution, supplemented by quality meat from local butchers bought using funding secured by MFP.”
She added: “The menus may change depending on what has been donated via FareShare’s food recovery scheme at the time. We are aiming this project at families who can donate towards the cost of dinners if they are able. Any money received will be reinvested towards future MFP and FACT projects, and help buy ingredients unavailable via FareShare.”
The project will run alongside a community pop-up pantry at the town hall run by MFP and FACT, as well as savings and loans cooperative Moray Firth Credit Union (MFCU) where free surplus and donated food items will be available at minimal charge. Customers wilkl be able to buy tokens to exchange for food items on display, for example £2.50 could be exchanged for food valued for between £10 and £15. The pantry will be in the lesser hall from 10am-noon on Saturdays, at the same time as coffee mornings in the main hall. A start date is to be confirmed.
Both projects help FACT, MPF and MFCU work with FareShare to reduce food waste. FareShare is the UK’s national network of charitable food redistributors. FareShare takes quality, surplus food from the food industry and gets it to more than 10,500 frontline charities and community groups.
FACT are grateful for a Co-op Local Community Fund grant, as well as additional funding from the Scottish Government’s Community Recovery Fund, that is helping to support the community meals project. The money is being used for colour-coded knives and chopping boards, as well as large pans.
FACT asks anyone interested in helping out either project, or just in learning how to prepare, cook or serve meals to get in touch via info@forresarea.org or 01309 674388.
