COMMUNITY cafés are leading the way in making healthy and tasty food on a budget.
The Peek A Boo Café, in Robin Hood Chase, St Ann's, provides hot meals for local children for just £1. It also runs cookery classes for them.
The Secret Kitchen Café, in Sneinton, is also feeding people healthy meals at a good price.
Karen Green, 43, set up Peek A Boo in memory of her nephew Kasseam Chatterie, known as Boo, who died from cancer last August aged 21. The café is run Monday to Friday by volunteers. It is also planning a Christmas meal for over-60s.
Ms Green said: "Money's tight, the poor are getting poorer and the rich are getting richer. It's important that the community pull together and help those who can't afford to eat. The café is a place where people get together, have a chat and, most importantly, sit and eat."
Both Ms Green and Marsha Smith, who runs the Secret Kitchen Café, have given the thumbs-up to the Post's Five Tons of Tins campaign.
We aim to collect the tins by Christmas and they will be donated to food banks for hard-up families.
We are placing collection boxes in schools, churches, other organisations and businesses.
When the box is full of tins, you are asked to take it to your nearest food bank, a list of which is included with the collection box. Miss Smith, 37, set up her café in Trent Road, Sneinton, in October last year to give local people healthy lunches and brunches, as well as educating them about how to make the food in their cupboards go further.
"It is diabolical that there are children going hungry in our city," she said.
"Part of the explanation is that people have lost that sense of making the most of everything they have and don't know how they can use the foods they do have wisely.
"At the café, which runs out of St Christopher's Church Hall every Thursday and Friday from 11am to 2pm, I make nutritious vegetarian meals cheaply. I don't offer a menu but make one hot dish per day for £3.50, so people who come know that the food they're eating is fresh and hasn't been stored in the fridge all week.
"If families were to make one big pot of food and all get together to eat that, it would be a lot cheaper and it brings people together. I'm very passionate about this and I have a lot of initiatives in the pipeline to educate people about cooking on a budget and food poverty.
"I know that £10 can feed two children healthily for five hot meals a week, but it is just getting that culture back into our society. It's that simple: buy fresh foods and make a big pot of food that will serve the family."
To get involved in our campaign and help us reach our Five Tons of Tins target, call Emily Winsor on 0115 9051951 or e-mail emily.winsor@nottinghampostgroup.co.uk .
If you've been helped by a food bank or volunteer at one, we'd like to hear your story. Contact Emily on the number above.
