Brickyard: Grow, Cook, Eat is Everton in the Community and Feeding Liverpool’s new community garden, which brings sustainable, creative urban-growing into the heart of L4.
Photo credit: Conal Studio
Feeding Liverpool and Everton in the Community partnered with Conal Studio to bring the Brickyard: Grow, Cook, Eat show garden from its first showing at the RHS Tatton Park flower show, to Liverpool, relocating it to Everton in the Community’s purpose-built mental health and wellbeing hub, The People’s Place – forming a lasting legacy for the city.
Brickyard at the RHS Tatton Park Flower Show
Brickyard showcases the best of inner city urban growing, with the design influenced by traditional brickyards that run alongside thousands of UK terraced streets. It responds to the limitations of awkward inner-city growing spaces and looks at how we can adapt them for modern living. Factors such as tenancy agreements, environmental concerns, tradition, and cost have a massive impact on how people utilise these spaces. The aim is to inspire new ways of thinking, by developing solutions for people that they may not have thought of.
Brickyard show garden, designed by Conal McGuire from Conal Studio, was awarded the highest honour at the RHS Flower Show: a Gold Medal alongside the award for Best Terrace and Slim Space Garden and The People’s Choice award.
During the show Brickyard hosted live demonstrations from Andrea Ku of B 4 Biodiversity. Andrea demonstrated how the gardens unique grow-frames enable people to cultivate food organically, in awkward outdoor spaces at home, or in shared gardens. The growing frames demonstrated the benefits of companion planting and will house bespoke habitats for rare species of bumblebee and other wildlife.
“Seeing this garden through from concept to reality has been a wonderful opportunity. There have been challenges along the way but knowing that Brickyard will go on to have a meaningful legacy back in Liverpool after Tatton makes it all worthwhile. I would like to thank Feeding Liverpool and Everton in the Community for their involvement, these two charities are close to my heart and represent some of our cities finest and kindest. I hope that Brickyard encourages people to boost urban biodiversity and inspires them to develop their own awkward outdoor spaces.” Conal McGuire at www.conalstudio.com
Photo credit: Emma Case
Brickyard at home in L4
In August, 2023, Brickyard was brought back to Everton in the Community’s purpose-built mental health hub, The People’s Place.
The People’s Place is the first purpose-built mental health and wellbeing hub attached to a Premier League football club and houses the charity’s 15 mental health projects and provides wellbeing activities alongside educational and employment support. The garden will become the latest addition to the Goodison Campus, offering a safe space for staff and service users to host one-on-one therapy sessions, community events, group counselling and community outreach work as well as giving residents access to homegrown food and equipping them with the skills to grow their own produce.
“Everton in the Community is thrilled to partner with Feeding Liverpool and Conal Studio to bring ‘Brickyard: Grow, Cook, Eat’ to The People’s Place. As a charity, we pride ourselves on acting upon the needs of the local community and improving access to homegrown produce is one that must be addressed to help tackle issues of food insecurity.
“This is a great opportunity for us, which will allow the community and our participants to access a green growing space and take up gardening to help aid their wellbeing. The garden will also help to support the delivery of our programmes and enhance what we can offer at The People’s Place, so we are honoured for it to be placed with us and continue Brickyard’s legacy.”
The garden is accessible to Feeding Liverpool’s network as they bring organisations and residents together to deliver engagement activities around Good Food For All, with both Feeding Liverpool and Everton in the Community supporting to Liverpool’s Good Food Plan.
In Liverpool more than 1 in 3 adults are food insecure – with food being a source of worry, and households reducing the quality and quantity of food they are eating, skipping meals and for some going hungry. Many residents also do not have access to their own green growing spaces. Liverpool’s Good Food Plan seeks to develop ‘food citizenship’ through enabling residents to have the power and tools to shape their own food environments. Urban food growing is a foundation stone of this vision. The partnership developed through ‘Brickyard: Grow, Cook, Eat’ will have numerous benefits for residents including encouraging healthy eating, a sense of wellbeing and improving food security.
Our Director Dr Naomi Maynard shared:
“Feeding Liverpool is delighted to partner with Conal Studio and Everton in the Community to bring ‘Brickyard: Grow, Cook, Eat’ to Liverpool. Good food is the foundation of strong communities in our city, bringing people from all different walks of life together. Our hope is that Brickyard will inspire urban growing in unusual spaces across Liverpool alongside being a focal point for good food in Everton.”
Jonathan Jones, Conal McGuire, Dr Ruth Hussey, Dr Naomi Maynard, Ian Snodin, Professor Matthew Ashton – Photo credit: Everton in the Community
Feeding Liverpool, Alchemic Kitchen and chef Adam Franklin partner on the Fed-Up Slow Cooker Training Programme, teaching practical, communal cooking courses that bring together and equip community members to make delicious, nutritious, low-maintenance meals on a budget, in a friendly atmosphere to help combat loneliness and social isolation.
We support and equip up to people to become community Fed-Up slow cooker trainers, supporting them to host slow cooking courses in their local communities.
Slow cookers are simple to use and typically use over 60% less energy than ovens.
The Fed-Up course, led by chef Adam Franklin, started in 2014 as a course designed to help supplement foodbank parcels to maximise the amount of meals that could be prepared by adding fresh food, a slow cooker and the training to effect change. It has developed into a network of people from community settings connected together to use their new practical skills, support each other and connected into other community projects.
Our half day train the trainer courses
After the course, the new trainers will receive on-going support including:
Training resources to deliver your course
10 recipe packs to handout to your course participants
Up to 10 slow cookers for your course participants
Ongoing communication with Feeding Liverpool, Alchemic Kitchen, and chef Adam Franklin to support the establishment of your courses
We do not currently have any further courses scheduled. Please get in touch with Feeding Liverpool’s Development Officer Samir to register your interest in future courses: [email protected]
Help us boost foodbank parcels across Liverpool each winter with fresh fruit and vegetables, supporting the health of families in a crisis.
It isn’t right that anyone needs to use a foodbank. Sadly many in our city do, with five of our largest foodbanks giving out over 480 foodbank parcels each week. At Feeding Liverpool we continue to campaign to end the root causes of poverty whilst ensuring people have good food at points of crisis.
Through the Winter Boost project, Feeding Liverpool work in partnership with five of Liverpool’s largest foodbank networks to boost every food parcel with fresh fruit and vegetables.
In 2022-2023, we partnered with St Andrew’s Community Network, South Liverpool Foodbank, Micah Liverpool, New Beginnings Improving Lives CIC, and L6 Community Association to boost foodbank parcels across the winter months.
The Winter Boost project will run again in 2023-2024. If you would like to support this project please get in touch with [email protected]
Hear from Cheryl and Sikarthmi about the difference the Winter Boost project makes:
Cheryl’s story
Cheryl 51, from Toxteth, is a mother of two and has four grand children. One daughter and granddaughter depend on her. Cheryl had been working as a nurse and began working as a cleaner before the pandemic to fill financial gaps. After some time, the work fizzled out and Cheryl and her family were back to square zero putting them into poverty right at the time when her daughter and granddaughter had no income.
Cheryl was reluctant to use foodbanks because it’s all tinned food, and she has multiple allergies. She uses her food as medicine. When she relies on tins she get sick really quickly.
Having fresh fruit and veg in their food parcel means Cheryl’s family are eating nutritious food and their immune systems are boosted. Cheryl says: “We need our immunities boosting during this season anyways, even without Covid, its flu season, its cold season, we need a strong system”
Sikarthmi’s story
After leaving Sri Lanka, Liverpool has been home to Sikarthmi and her five children aged 2, 5, 9, 10 and 15, for the last eight years. Since her husband left, she has struggled financially, and her spousal visa expired. Her and her family’s future feels uncertain.
Her children love the fresh fruit and vegetables they receive at the foodbank. In the evenings they will eat fresh carrots and peppers, dipping them in yoghurt.
Sikarthmi says: “The foodbank feels like a family. It is more than the food I receive, it is a place where I feel loved and accepted, giving me the strength to face the road ahead.”
We want to live in a city where everyone can eat good food.
Liverpool’s Good Food Plan addresses key issues related to the food we eat in Liverpool. This includes food insecurity, access to and take-up of healthy, nutritious food, the impact the food we eat is having on our planet, and the practices by which the food we eat is produced.
This report shares the progress made in 2022 towards the goals of the Good Food Plan. It presents ‘Action Highlights’ under each of the five goals identified by Liverpool’s Good Food Taskforce, alongside updates from residents, organisations and businesses who pledged to work towards the vision of Good Food For All at the Good Food Plan Pledge event in November 2021.
Healthy Start is a national scheme that provides help for eligible families and those who are pregnant to buy healthy food and milk.
Healthy Start includes a pre-paid card allocated £4.25 per week (£8.50 during the first year of a child’s life) to be spent on milk, fruit, and vegetables, infant formula, and access to Healthy Start vitamins. If a participant remains eligible from 10 weeks pregnant until their child is age 4, £1,200 could be accessed via the scheme.
However, since the transition to a digitalised scheme, uptake has reduced to just 65% across Liverpool with £758,521.24 going unclaimed in 2021.
Increasing awareness and uptake of the Healthy Start Scheme across Liverpool is crucial as it could make a significant difference to some of Liverpool’s lowest income households, improving the quality and quantity of good food their household consumes, which is especially important during pregnancy and early years development.
Become a Community Healthy Start Champion
Feeding Liverpool offer regular free introductory training to The Healthy Start Scheme, with trainees becoming Community Healthy Start Champions, able to promote the scheme in their communities.
This training is aimed at people in Liverpool who support pregnant women and parents/carers with young children aged 0–4 years, including:
• Voluntary sector volunteers or staff members – including organisations that support families through the Holidays Activities and Food Programme
• Children centre staff, health-care related workers, and wellbeing professionals
Join the 187 people who have already completed this training.
View our event page here to see when the next training will be taking place or watch our online training below.
For more information about The Healthy Start Scheme visit including Feeding Liverpool’s research ‘A Healthy Start for Liverpool’ click here
Since 2021 Feeding Liverpool has led Liverpool’s Good Food Plan and listening to people across Liverpool as they have answered this question: “What does Good Food mean to you?”
For many, it means eating our cultural food. Feeding Liverpool have also heard how the traditions surrounding cultural food are important to our wellbeing through our sense of shared identity, community, and heritage.
This year, working with local photographer Emma Case and community groups across Liverpool, Feeding Liverpool have begun building a collection of food stories through photographs and interviews.
photo credit: Nicholas Holt
Naomi Maynard, Director of Feeding Liverpool says:
“At Feeding Liverpool we believe that local people should have the power and resources to shape their local food environments and the food system as a whole. Over the last two years we have heard from residents how good food can make us feel empowered, dignified, connected, joyful, and nostalgic, and that it is important that everyone in our city can enjoy good food. Good Food; Our Food brings to life good food stories from communities across Liverpool in a powerful and provocative way, whilst inviting each of us to join the conversation to explore what good food means to you.”
Photographer and Feeding Liverpool’s Creative Engagement Officer Emma Case says:
“It’s been an absolutely incredible time getting to know all the wonderful people and families who have been involved in this project. I’m so grateful for them all. Their stories are rich and powerful, and I love that they are being shared. Partnering with Feeding Liverpool has meant this project has been for a greater cause and as a photographer, you can’t get any better than your work having this kind of impact.”
Dagmara Wojciechowicz, Manager of Merseyside Polonia and partner on Good Food; Our Food, says:
“We are incredibly honoured to partner with Feeding Liverpool and Emma Case on this event. I feel that our organisations share a passion for addressing issues that are affecting our local communities. Having access to culturally appropriate food is a necessity shared between all community members, universal to their country of origin. We are pleased that together we can support and advocate for wider community groups who found home here in Liverpool and Merseyside. We are such a welcoming city and this event is all about Scouse hospitality and all of our neighbours who chose this city to call home.”
In May 2023 we launched the Good Food; Our Food travelling photos and story exhibition. This year the exhibition will travel around local communities groups.
In 2022, Feeding Liverpool worked alongside the team at Kensington Fields Community Association (KFCA), The Guardian and Church Action on Poverty to make Made in Liverpool: This land is our land
Made in Liverpool: This land is our land
Sue and Myra run a community centre at the heart of Kenny Fields in Liverpool. Their pantry offers residents affordable food, but also a sense of togetherness, pride, and plenty of laughs.
But there is something missing: a feeling of control and security. With development spreading rapidly from Liverpool city centre, residents fear for the future of their community – and now they are starting to fight back.
This is the fifth episode of Made in Britain by The Guardian, a community-based video journalism project looking at poverty, inequality and the challenges our communities face in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. The aim is to put the individuals who are typically under-represented in the media in front of and behind the camera.
In June we hosted a film screening at Kensington Fields Social Club. A panel discussion and Q&A followed the screening giving the audience an opportunity to hear from the people behind the film including; Sue Robinson from KFCA; Mark Harrison from Kensington Fields CLT; John Domokos from The Guardian; independent filmmaker and photographer Colin McPherson; and Paul Kelly from Breaking Ground. The panel Q&A was chaired by Dr Naomi Maynard, Good Food Programme Director at Feeding Liverpool.
We were delighted to have food from Homebaked Bakery available before the panel discussion, and to be partnering with Cinema Nation, the team behind Scalarama and The Spirit of Liverpool: Archive Films, helping us bring this film into the community, and local photographer Emma Case.
Announced at the Good Food Plan Pledge Event in November, Feeding Britain awarded Feeding Liverpool £30,000 from their Community Food Fund to develop new community food spaces with St Andrew’s Community Network, Micah Liverpool, Liverpool Six Community Association, and New Beginnings Improving Lives.
This funding will go towards Good Food Projects setting up food pantries, relaunching a community market, developing mobile school-based food clubs, and developing a mobile unit to extend the reach of a community food store.
We caught up with the four organisations as they prepare to launch their Good Food Projects.
St Andrews Community Network
St Andrews Community Network lead the Your Local Pantry network in North Liverpool. These are membership-based food pantries where members pay £3.50 for 10 items. They are intending to use this funding to open three new pantries in partnership with local community organisations in the coming months. St Andrews Community Network will be working to develop these pantries with KKZ Coaching in Walton, Marybone Youth and Community Centre in Vauxhall, and Bethel Church in Tuebrook.
Simon Huthwaite, Operations Manager at St Andrew’s Community Network said:
“We are excited about these new opportunities to support excellent organisations and their local communities. Our partnership with Feeding Liverpool is something we are really excited about and my conversations with other pantries nationwide are highlighting the need for more of this kind of partnership working.”
St Andrew’s Community Network were awarded £15,900.
Micah Liverpool
Micah Liverpool run a large independent foodbank serving the local community and asylum seekers and refugees. Their Good Food Project is a relaunch of their membership-based community market, closed since March 2020, with fresh fruit and vegetables included for the first time, using local community growing organisations to do so. Micah Liverpool is looking to relaunch in February of this year.
Paul O’Brien, Micah Liverpool’s Chief Executive said:
“The funding has allowed Micah to extend its reach in the community and to help people in and around the area who have been suffering in poverty. The funding will be especially useful to help those that have fallen below the poverty line during the pandemic.”
Micah Liverpool were awarded £750.
Liverpool Six Community Association
Liverpool Six Community Association run an established food union serving the community of L6, Everton. They will develop three to four school-based food clubs as a mobile extension of their existing food union which provides ambient, chilled, fresh and frozen food.
Liverpool Six Community Association’s Head of Operations, Shirley Marshall, explained:
“We would love to work with families to empower them and help them retain their dignity and take away stigma associated with food banks.”
Liverpool Six Community Association were awarded £5250.
New Beginnings Improving Lives (NBIL)
NBIL run a membership-based community food store in Tuebrook which opened in June 2021. NBIL are using the money awarded to develop a mobile unit to extend the reach of their community food store. This will be done by using a repurposed ice cream van to be able to take their community food store to food deserts in the city.
New Beginnings Improving Lives Director and Founder Michelle Roach said:
“Access to low-cost food is a huge barrier to those who are both vulnerable and have no recourse to public funds and with our mobile pantry we want the community accessing low-cost affordable fresh produce which will result in fewer foodbank referrals in the long term. We want to thank the team at Feeding Liverpool for allowing us to make our plan a reality and we look forward to watching this initiative grow from strength to strength.”
New Beginnings Improving Lives were awarded £8400.
If you have an idea for a Good Food Project, email [email protected]
To stay up to date with these Good Food Projects, visit our website here.
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