Our first session back in 2022 and the coffee morning was full of smiles with everyone glad to be back in Network! We're glad to be getting back into the swing of it all and can't wait to show you what we're going to be up to this year. 

The tombola was a great hit in our final joint community session. The community and the families were happy to donate to the charity chosen - Doorstep - and we were able to raise a massive £78! We had a few people comment that they would be able to use what they'd won as last minute gifts too. 

The carol singing really got the community and their parents in the festive mood and they were super impressed with the effort that had been put into the songs. They were especially impressed by the sign language they'd practiced for one of the songs. 

The young people had an absolute blast at their Christmas parties! A big thank you to Healthy Lifestyles Hull for giving us the funding to provide an amazing spread and some delicious fruit mocktails for everyone to enjoy through out the week. The young people were full of energy and loved the team games supplied by Healthy Holidays as well as the other Christmas games we'd planned ourselves! 

The Community had a fabulous time in both of their Christmas parties before we broke off. We were able to cook delicious turkey stuffing sandwiches for them, supply them with some Christmas crafts to use as any last minute gifts or cards, and have a jolly dance with the staff. 

We planned 8 weeks worth of cooking activities for the young people to do in their sessions; the meals that they cooked were chosen and voted on by them the week before. We put the meals in an order so that the young people would learn more and more each week and be able to use their new learnt skills as they go along. 

The young people really enjoyed learning how to cook from scratch, making carbonara, their very own salsa and gauc to go with nachos, making vegetarian dishes like halloumi kebabs, an so much more. We had multiple young people come back saying that their families loved their food and that they can't wait to try the next meal.

Being able to help the young people develop their basic skills and help teach them to cook was great as they might not get the information from school or at home. By helping them see cooking healthy food can be a fun activity instead of a chore, it sets them up to want to help out at home and to prefer healthy meals instead of fast food. We also made sure that the meals we cooked with them were done cheaply and simply - but still tasty! - so that the young people would be able to recreate it no matter their situation at home.