The Lily Project – Impact Report
The Lily Project has been developed to try and alleviate the need for the services offered by foodbanks by providing bags of food which contain everything required for a family meal – as well as the ingredients and a recipe card, there are also some activities for children so they can join in and help.
The idea is to create an opportunity for people to combine healthy eating and cooking as a family.
The Impact Report provides some background to the project, the need for it, what is involved and some positive reactions from the food bank, the recipients and SI Coventry who have trialled the project.
By working with food banks in this way, we cover the educate, enable and empower agenda. We can count families helped and we can count our volunteer hours. We are taking action rather than making donations, both financial and in goods.
For the purposes of the pilot, SI Coventry delivered 5 bags a week for 5 consecutive weeks. This was just for the pilot. There is no intention that clubs will follow this pattern and, in fact, as this will be part of other actions for clubs, it is unreasonable to expect this.
As a club, the following decisions will need to be made:
- Cost – where is the funding coming from? Please try to find money from others rather than putting our hands in our own pockets. This could be grant funding eg from the Co-op or from friends. People we know may give a donation more easily when we explain what the money is for. The budget that you identify will then drive the number and frequency of bags.
- How? – In SI Coventry, one member took one week. They found it easier to source and buy all the ingredients for the 5 bags rather than different people shopping and then delivering to others. The person that put the bags together, delivered them to the food bank.
- What? – The project put together 5 nutritional recipes. These are in the report and are available as pdfs for printing separately. You can use these or you can decide on your own recipes and print them. Please also include the tick list for little hands. Please retain the branding of ‘The Lily Project’ because we want this to be identifiable action across the UK and we can then measure the impact of this particular initiative. It is like the Orange Cafes – we are becoming recognisable across the Federation with cafes in India and the Caribbean.
- When? – this is your club plan. The funding is key and that can take time. You need to contact your foodbank and ask if they would accommodate this project. The Coventry food bank manager said that complete meals in bags would be absolutely excellent, much more meaningful than random donations although she recognised that at the moment, the bags would be a small part of the provision.
- Support – Please do contact UKPAC for additional information.
Free Download of Recipes
Acknowledgements
Laura Crawley is a member of SI Leamington and used CANVA to create the cards. She identified the foodbank that would engage with the pilot and would engage and organise a focus group for feedback.
Lily Samuels is also a member of SI Leamington and provided the recipes. Lily has a wide business network and she is already getting interest from them about this project.
SI Coventry piloted the project.
Dishi Attwood led on this project and worked with Laura, Lily and SI Coventry.