19 January 2023
Crafting a community for those in need
Since June 2018, Brighton-based charity Making it Out, has been supporting a variety of people in rehabilitating their lives through creative endeavours, such as art, sculpture, and craftsmanship. Primarily working with people leaving prison, managing their mental health, or dealing with substance misuse or homelessness, Making it Out provides a place for participants to learn valuable, practical skills and become part of a community.
We asked co-founder Lucy Grubb to tell us more about Making it Out and how partnering with FareShare has enabled the organisation to thrive and help those in need of their support.
Bringing people together over lunch
“I think the biggest thing I’ve realised since the pandemic is that we provide a sense of community for our participants,” says Lucy. “Many of the people we work with are often very isolated. When they may already be struggling with quite poor mental health and few social networks, they come to us and become part of a community, which is really beneficial for their progress, I think. One aspect of that community is that we always sit down to have lunch together, and that’s where FareShare comes in.
“We receive a wide selection of food from FareShare. Our deliveries consistently include a lot of fresh fruit and vegetables, then we receive a real mixture of other items on top of that — it can be canned and dried goods, like beans and pasta, or meat. It gives us a variety of options for meals to prepare.”
Hot, nutritious meals
Using the ingredients from FareShare, Lucy and the team are able to cook well-balanced meals for participants to enjoy at lunchtime, which Lucy says makes a big difference to their wellbeing:
“Lunch is always so well received. For a lot of our participants, it’s probably the most nutritious, and only hot, meal they have during the day. Thanks to the supplies we get from FareShare, the meals we provide are more complex because we have a greater variety of food. Compared to the lunches we were able to afford before, what we’re cooking now is definitely healthier and more generous.
“And of course, there’s the added community benefit of us all sitting down to have lunch together, too. I can’t emphasise enough how important that is. Everyone stops work and we’ll just sit and chat.”
Nothing going to waste
“We try to not let any of what we get go to waste,” says Lucy. “That’s why we offer anything we don’t use in meals in an informal ‘food bank’ style. Our participants can pick any items they’d like and take them home to use themselves, with no stigma attached. It can be hard for those who are very proud to admit they need some extra food, but it’s so important that they can stay nourished, both physically and mentally. Most people take a few things every week.
“The other thing is about showing people how easy it can be to cook. Just really simple food from scratch, like a quick pasta sauce from fresh tomatoes. A lot of our participants are very interested in that, so we can show them when making lunch, then they can take some ingredients and try it at home as well. So having such a range and quantity of food from FareShare extends beyond us just being able to make our participants lunch each day.”
