Our Community Kitchen hosted a fantastic Easter celebration lunch for their guests. The guests were delighted to receive a delivery of Easter eggs from PureMalt. They received so many eggs they were able to deliver some to their members who remain at home due to the impact of the lock-downs and the pandemic.
The OCK Easter fundraiser successfully raised an impressive £400 on the day to allow the continued support for OCK's activities.
East Lothian Council have been supportive of the charity by providing a grant that will help towards some of the chef's salary at OCK.
A generous local individual has donated £250 to provide OCK with a hot compost bin. This will greatly help the charity's gardening project.
McCarthy Stone has given a grant to support OCK's greenhouse and pizza oven within the garden. The charity is very grateful for their support.
The Scottish Government has enabled the charity to provide accessible bike trips and bus trips through Handicabs and Beyond Boundaries East Lothian. Volunteer centre East Lothian have been administering this and providing support, which has been great!.
The new charity's activities coordinator Tonya Moncrieff will be starting on the 17th of May, she will be responsible for setting up activities, social events for the guests and for accompanying people on the bike and bus trips.
Elaine (founder) is working on funding applications for the next 3 years to ensure that the charity can continue to operate and provide their services for the participants.
OCK was delighted to announce the winning number 69 in their 50/59 cash prize draw for April. 138 numbers were sold and the total amount received was £690 and the winner received £345.
The charity are pushing the message of their 50/50 club through the Bailie Gifford donation of leaflets and word of mouth to grow donations here.
The team welcomes 2 new volunteers Elaine and Paul they have now settled in and are helping the team with helping to serve lunches to participants. OCK are still looking out for volunteers to support the charities initiatives.
The new accessible toilet in the bowling club is in place and allows access to the community kitchen and the bowling green for members with restricted mobility.
The garden's activities are off to a strong start with Meadowpark school, Haddington Infants Nursery School, Compass school and Peartree Nursery all attending growing courses and projects linked with OCK. There is lots of food growing in the greenhouse and garden.
A kind local lady has donated shelving for the greenhouse to assist in their growing projects.
Within coming weeks the plaques to thank the supporters of the garden project will be fitted within the garden on the planters.
Coming up in the next few weeks the charity will begin to set their plans for the Jubilee weekend.
They will be holding a bake sale and the selling of plants at the fun day in Neilson Park on the 4th June to raise funds for the charity.
The charity has provided catering once again for the Walk with Scott Foundation as they complete a fundraising walk of 29.3 miles. OCK will provided 100 meals for the team at the finish line in Cockenzie and Port Seton British Legion Club.