Youth Club is bringing the community together through food

MEMBERS of the Westbury Youth Club have been learning essential cooking skills over the past five weeks and put together a special two-course meal for their friends and family to enjoy at the end of their course.

The young people learned how to make a variety of foods such as pizza, apple crumble, jam tarts and macaroni cheese, and the project was made possible thanks to a grant by the Wiltshire Community Foundation.

Leader of the youth club, Beth Mullins, said, “Over the past five weeks we have been running a cooking class for the young people of Westbury. Last year Wiltshire Community Foundation contacted us and asked if we would like to apply for a grant with the remit being bringing the community closer together through food.

“They had already gone to the obvious organisations such as food banks and charity cooking schemes and our name was put forward. I then proposed the idea that we get the young people cooking to teach them skills they can take further into life. We brought the community together on the final week as the young people not only cooked for themselves but for their friends and family as we invited them in for a two-course meal. We run various cooking sessions during our usual weekly youth club but unfortunately, we don’t have a cooker on site.

“For this project we worked with Westbury Leigh Church and Community Hall and over the five weeks the young people made pizza, apple crumble, jam tarts, macaroni cheese, cheese straws and scones. The final week it was handed over to them to decide what they wanted to cook, and they chose sausage rolls with mash potato, carrots and peas followed by chocolate brownie.

“This was a huge success with friends and family saying how lovely the food was and how much they enjoyed coming in and seeing what their children have learnt and made during the course. We have to say a huge thank you to Wiltshire Community Foundation for giving us the opportunity to deliver such a beneficial and engaging course; a huge thank you to the team that gave up their Saturday mornings to the friends and family who joined us on the last week but most of all to all those young people who took part.”

The youth club’s next project will be a graffiti day in Penleigh Park, and members will be hoping to repeat the success of last year when they resprayed the multi-use games area in Grassacres Park. The artist Tom Miller will be holding a workshop on Saturday 29th April 10am to 4pm for the young people of Westbury to get involved and re-spray the ramps.

Tom will come back to Westbury on Monday 1st May from 10am to 4pm to do a touch up and hold a question-and-answer session with the young people.

There will be a BBQ, snacks and refreshments on sale and the club will be working again with 4Youth Westbury who will be providing low level background music.