Cracking Good Food Volunteer

Cracking Good Food launched in 2010, with the aim of encouraging and supporting more people to cook affordable, seasonal and nutritious homemade food from scratch; due to years of austerity policies and a global pandemic our work now includes alleviating hunger, and supporting the development of healthy, food-secure communities in the face of the cost of living crisis.  

Driven by our belief that everyone has a right to good food, our mission is simple: to work collaboratively with others to alleviate hunger and increase sustainable food security - especially amongst communities sidelined by poverty and other complex disadvantages in Greater Manchester.  We enthuse, encourage, and teach individuals and groups how to source and cook affordable, healthy, low-fuel and tasty food from scratch whilst minimising both food waste and our environmental impact. 

We do this by delivering empowering community-based cooking courses, workshops, educational programmes and training as part of a wider campaign for affordable, sustainable & healthier food for all. We also provide food and activities for ‘holiday hunger’ projects (HAF), run surplus vegetable delivery and recipe kit schemes and a meal service for hospital discharge patients. Since March 2020, we have cooked and distributed more than 115,000 meals to support low-income or otherwise disadvantaged communities. Plus our ‘Kitchen Kit Call Out’ campaign redistributes thousands of pre-loved kitchen items back into use in the community to empower cooking and minimise landfill; so far we have redistributed more than 5 tonnes of equipment to support people starting out in new homes following a crisis as well as other community cooking projects.  Furthermore, last year alone we shared cooking-from-scratch skills with more 1800 community members via our empowering cooking workshops. 

As a social enterprise the funds generated from our catering service, pop-up events, cookery school classes, team building activities and urban foraging expeditions help to cover our core costs and enable us to continue our community work. We have a wide range of ad-hoc volunteering opportunities from helping out at our cooking sessions and forages, to delivery driving, to behind-the-scenes admin support. 

Below is a rough list of what  you ‘may be asked to help with:

• Set up the area (erect gazebo, set up tables, help unload kit from cars)
• Display Banners & promotional material
• Plan & organise the session
• Welcome, introduction & any housekeeping
• Encourage participation
• Prep OR supervise the preparation of ingredients
• Cook OR supervise cooking
• Engage & oversee participants
• Aid communication of CGF’s educational messages (nutrition, sustainability, bulk cooking & any top tips)
• Gaining bespoke feedback
• Wash up
• Tidy up and put awayDismantle area & reload cars

We are looking for volunteers who are friendly, reliable, good listeners, dependable, comfortable chatting to people, can-do attitude, ability to think on your feet.