2024 - A Year in Review
January
We kicked off the year with a very special a photography exhibition “In the Kitchen”, to celebrate the generosity of the Eat Well MCR collective. The images were taken by our talented Support Coordinator and photographer Jane Walton in restaurants across Manchester capturing our chefs in action to showcase the time, skill and hard work that goes into making the meals we distribute. Thank you to 10 Tib Lane for hosting and supplying the most delicious snacks and drinks, and to everyone who came along to support or bought a print.
Prints on postcards and tea towels are available on our online shop with proceeds funding meals for people in need.
We also held our first Custodians dinner, to thank the generous individuals who pledge £1,500 to ensure the future of Eat Well MCR.
February
We were honoured to be asked by Kat Wood to feature in Cloudwater’s International Women’s Day campaign this year, which celebrated the wonderful local community of women with an especially brewed beer and can artwork.
March
For the third year in a row, we held the NRB launch dinner, bringing together an incredible lineup of chefs from near and far: Ronnie Aronica, Seri Nam, India Gilbey, Hannah Hall, Sally Abé, Mursal Saiq, Ngwafu Tansie, Joké Bakare, Zisis Giannouras, Tom Barnes, Farida Hamad, Sameer Sehgal, May Kyi Noo, Rosie Wilkes and Callum Higgins.
Guests enjoyed a 7-course meal in the beautiful surroundings of Fenix restaurant, which turned into an impromptu karaoke session… Most importantly, the night raised an incredible £21,971 for Eat Well MCR.
April
In April we held the first of our Greater Manchester Youth Network x Food Sorcery days, which have been an important part of our community work this year. GMYN empowers young people aged 10-25 across Greater Manchester with opportunities they might not otherwise access. The people supported include care leavers and cared-for young people, young people with social, emotional, and mental health needs, disabled and neurodiverse young people and young refugees and unaccompanied asylum seekers.
Participants from GMYN learned to cook, enjoyed a meal together and also made additional meals for Eat Well MCR to distribute. We’ve now hosted 11 of these sessions to date!
May
We bid a fond farewell to our delivery driver Alex Williams, who you can find doing wonderful things with mushrooms over at Stockport Fungi.
As part of our expanding community outreach work, we also organised for 12 young care-experienced people to be treated to a lunch at Hawksmoor.
June
Gemma visited Ashton Academy, whose pupils raised £820 for Eat Well MCR as part of their citizenship course.
It was also the start of festival season! Parklife, Green Island, Moovin and Wythenshawe Festival all fundraised for us this year. Thank you to Green Events, who’ve so far helped us raise £27,000 through festival collaborations.
June was also the month that the Reserve Wines team hiked the Yorkshire Three Peaks Challenge for Eat Well MCR, raising a whopping £4,243 in the process. We are honoured to have been chosen as their charity partner for the year!
We were hugely saddened to hear of the passing of Kate Vokes, an incredible woman and longtime friend and supported of Eat Well MCR. We were honoured to cater her memorial service.
July
In July, we threw a party in collaboration with ‘Another Good Thing’, which celebrated local entrepreneurship at Pollard Yard and raised funds for Eat Well MCR in the process.
We said goodbye to our amazing support coordinator, Jane, as she moved to London. During her time with us, Jane expertly managed the complex logistics of collecting meals from Manchester restaurants and delivering them to those in need. She also ran our social media accounts—a role she thankfully continues from afar. Supremely organised and deeply dedicated, Jane remains an invaluable part of our team, and we’re so grateful for all she’s done and continues to do for our mission.
August
We welcomed the newest member of our team, the wonderful Helen Tate, who’s taken over the coordination of meal collection and distribution. Helen is always ready with a smile no matter what the role throws at her and we're delighted she's joined our team.
September
Our inaugural Eat Well, Do Good Festival kicked off in style, with a series of popup supper clubs at the Campus bungalow.
We also continued to host batch cooks with local chefs such as Mama Z and Issy Jenkins—we were kindly hosted by R. Noone’s.
October
October saw our very first city-wide festival, Eat Well Do Good. For one week, the city’s cafés, restaurants and bars came together to fundraise for Eat Well MCR. There were limited edition dishes, donation points, ticketed dinners and a forum to discuss ED&I in hospitality. The week culminated in a party at Ramona to thank our hospitality friends for helping us to raise a whopping £6,000.
November
We launched our Eat Well MCR merch, including Tote Bags and Tea Towels.
December
In December, we collaborated with Good Thing Coffee and Old Abbey Tap House on a Christmas Wellness Box Appeal, delivering boxes of toiletries, snacks and other treats to care leavers facing the Christmas period without support. A huge thank you to everyone who donated items!
We also hosted a dinner for 150 care leavers, catered by Gary Weir of Hot Buttered/Tartuffe—thanks to Cert Property for supporting us with funding and We Are Indigo and Nadine Weston for venue decoration!
We also made 400 Christmas dinners with the help of our supporters at St Pierre.
Last but not least, we met our goal for the year of reaching 130,000 meals distributed since Eat Well MCR started. Though we always prioritise quality over quantity, goals like this help us to keep track of the impact we’re making.
We were supported throughout the year by We Are Indigo who provided their amazing PR services at no cost. We were also supported by volunteers, donations, and general goodwill from the amazing community that we are lucy to be a part of in Manchester. We can't thank you enough!
We look forward to sharing our plans for 2025 with you!
