<p>Radio City Association are working to provide cooking skills to combat the cost of living crisis. All participants are provided with free ingredients to prepare all meals and instructed&nbsp;with highly qualified and charismatic chef on basic cooking skills. We offer two levels of cooking class with one offering basic introduction for those who have no experience cooking and also a more intermediate class allowing for people with more experience cooking to prepare more cost effective meals.</p> <p>The cooking lessons offer&nbsp;a relaxed, fun and interactive environment,&nbsp;with participants learning how to prepare cost-effective fresh and healthy meals with&nbsp;new cooking skills, developing other skills including teamwork, and also providing a place for interaction and tackling isolation. We work with the George Steven Community hub in delivering the classes who opearte community meals service and wider food poverty alleviation.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>&nbsp;</p>

<p>After the success of the fun day in July 2023 we thought it would be great to be able to replicate and add to this for 2024 whilst trying to keep everything as low cost as possible. From Pony rides to misbehaving donkeys, and the cutest alpacas around there will be something for all the family to enjoy. We are applying for this funding towards the cost of activities for next year.</p>

<p>We wish to purchase a wood burning machine to do professional wood burning signs for the community</p>

<p>SHED is part of Community Roots in West Kilbride which also runs the Village Larder, a subsidised food with dignity project. We have a community garden in the center of West Kilbride and host a drop-in social gardening day once a week there. We have been developing this garden for fruit and vegetable growing so that we can learn how to grow food whilst recognising the mental and physical health benefits of gardening together. Most of what we produce goes to our Village Larder to be accessed for free by our customers there, and some of it is a healthy reward for our hard working volunteers. Our aims are to make healthy food more accessible and create a buzz in the area about the benefits to our health and environment by growing our own food.&nbsp; In the upcoming year we want to further develop our Community Garden and facilitate food growing in people&#39;s own gardens by providing materials, plants and practical support. We trialed offering some plants to our Village Larder customers this summer with great success and think that we can advertise and distribute well from there, with additional advertising of the project on our social media platforms and contacts. We think this will build our connections with people in WK and be the start of a rolling project over the seasons with continual support and materials offered. People will be asked when signing up f they prefer large trugs, 15litre potted veg gardens, or pop up fabric planters and what plants they want to grow from a list. We will have cards to give out with info on growing each plant, fertiliser for the season, canes and ties etc. They will be invited to sow the seeds in our polytunnel on drop in days to see where it all begins and this will introduce people to our growing community. This project will be especially useful for people who aspire to grow but don&#39;t know where to start, people who can&#39;t afford things like soil and fertiliser to sustain crops once established (which is expensive, expanding education on food and its origins, and people who are not able to access the drop in sessions that are keen to connect and grow.&nbsp;</p>