At Manchester’s African Caribbean Care Group, food means care, culture, and community

ACCG is a charity based in Manchester, running a lively day care and community service for people aged 50 and over. They primarily serve the local African Caribbean community with culturally appropriate and affordable health care services. Food plays a large part in their work as the charity delivers meals into the community and hosts regular breakfast and lunch clubs.   

Dorothy Evans, CEO at ACCG, said: “So we started many years ago and have been around for 38 years. We had a lunch club making sure people from the African Caribbean community could socialise and at the same time get together and have culturally appropriate hot meals. Then a need was identified for meals in the community for people who couldn’t get out and about. We’ve been providing these services for as long as the organisation has been going.”  

Since ACCG started receiving food from FareShare, it’s helped to keep their costs down and the quality of food high.  

Ammaarah Ahmed, Services Manager at ACCG, said: “It’s important that we provide a good balanced meal. We don’t use processed foods, so the food that we get, especially the fresh vegetables from FareShare, we incorporate into meals to make sure that we never compromise on the quality of what we give out.” 

Dorothy shares some of the recipes made with the food: “If we get lamb it will be either curried lamb or stir fry. They absolutely love that. Sometimes we get beef as well that’s helpful with beef being at the price it is.”    

She emphasises how the food has impacted the community they serve: “It’s been a massive benefit for the people we are supporting. Where people are having to make a choice between am I going to heat the house or am I going to feed the family, we can help out, and that’s where the food we get from FareShare comes in.

“The cost of living has definitely impacted the people we work with. People are not able to have the treats that they used to because you have to watch the pennies at the end of the day. The fuel increase, the reduction in people’s benefits, particularly if you are on pensions or ESA, it has been really hard. There are people who struggle to pay their rents, their mortgages. It’s been horrendous really.

“The food service puts you in touch with people that you might not necessarily see. When you’re delivering food to somebody’s home you can see their lifestyle and if there are any issues. A lot of the food connections will bring people back to us for our other services, such as information, advice and advocacy.”