What do we mean when we speak about Social Footprint?

As many of you may know The Long Table is more than a canteen. When we are at our best we jump at the opportunities to connect people around a meal, enable opportunities to cook and nurture groups to heal their communities with food. We are so thankful for all of those individuals, neighbours, communities and business’ who come forward and want to join us on this collective social footprint journey and in our new home we have made a way to make this possible. We know that together we can grow our table to support and impact positively on our community or as we are calling it our collective Social Footprint.

The first way we are working on our Social Footprint together is to fill our Community Canteen with people that want to come together to create a stronger community. Our home is our vision come to life and in this space we need to:

• Use food surplus and local suppliers to lead our menu offers

• Eat together and share your conversation with us and those around you

• Pay What We Can for our food so no there is no barrier to access

It is paramount that the work we do here creates projects that grow our collective Social Footprint. In modelling the future we want, means we can enable change in our five valleys. To impact our collective Social Footprint in our community we would ask you to become a Friend of The Long Table. Each Friend subscription pays for a meal for you each week and:

• Fully funds every meal that goes to the Freezers of Love out in the community. This means those who can’t make it to Brimscombe can access meals whenever they need them.

• Pays for training our apprentices so we can help nurture some raw talent and turn that into young people with great experience in cooking and serving food in a new way that in turn will mean more chefs can see how food can be there to heal people and planet in a sustainable manner.

• Funds and enables communities to hire cooks, set up enterprises and serve food to their own communities Pay-As-You-Can meals with all profits directly going back to them. This model circumnavigates the normal way food businesses are set up and gives the support and agency that these passionate communities want.

Food is more than fuel; food brings people from all walks of life to the table and creates the opportunity for unity, grows community resilience and the positive change our society is hungry for. Together let’s take time to think about how our collective action impacts on our Social Footprint and how in joining us at the table we can work towards a better food future for all and can inspire other communities and make a difference the world is hungry for.

We are excited to partner with local businesses as Social Footprint partners. Each one of the below business’ work with us to better our community by not only having spaces at our table but by promoting good in these valleys and beyond. To join us as a Social Footprint partner please do get in touch by emailing will@thelongtableonline.com