A TURF Lodge community voluntary organisation has launched a Winter Lunch Club providing a free warm, home cooked meal for over 60s.
Ardmonagh Family and Community Group are inviting their elderly service users to the Winter Lunch Club so that they don't have to choose between heating their homes and eating amidst the cost of living crisis. The lunch club will begin in November until the end of January.
Fionnuala Lavery and Natasha Doyle of Ardmonagh Family and Community Group spoke to the Andersonstown News about the initiative.
"We don’t want our service users to have to choose to heat their homes or eat due to the cost of living crisis” says Fionnuala.
“We are opening our doors to our service users this winter to provide them with a warm, home cooked meal and a bit of craic. If you are over 60 and would benefit from this, please get in contact with us today to guarantee your place.
“It’s going to run from the first week in November until the end of January. The purpose behind it was that we were concerned about the cost of living crisis that was happening and saw the media with people having to choose between heat or eat and we didn’t want any of our service users to have to make that choice.
“The Winter Lunch Club means people can come into our centre for three hours a day and during that time they don’t have to make a choice between heating or eating. The building will be nice and warm for them and will be provided with a warm and hearty meal hopefully with some entertainment and craic as well.”
Good Morning West Belfast, a telephone befriending service by Ardmonagh Family and Community Group, has over 451 elderly service users.
“They are very vocal at the moment in terms of expressing their concerns around having to make some of those choices,” says Fionnuala.
“There was a wee lady last week who had described on the phone that they were sitting wrapped in multiple blankets because they couldn’t afford to put their heating on all day. That’s a very real-life problem and that was a very real example of somebody living in West Belfast on our phone lines.
“If we can help and act as a protective measure for some of those people this winter that’s the whole aim of it.”
Natasha added: “There will be a cook on site providing the food daily. It’ll be something warm as Fionnuala had said: Stews, soups, rolls, lasagnes, cottage pies. Things that the elderly people appreciate as well and are used to having or used to making for their own families, something to encourage a trip down memory lane.”
The local service is available to people in the area who are over 60. Spaces are limited to 25 spaces from November between 11am and 1pm.
