The Big Lunch Community Walk

By helenarmet on May 27, 2019 • ( 2 Comments )

Tomorrow Tuesday 28th May sees The Big Lunch Community Walk coming to Orkney. The reason behind The Big Lunch Walk is to bring attention to those within Orkney that are doing great work at bringing folk together by using food (The Big Lunch) within their communities.

The Big Lunch which has been running since 2009 is an initiative from The Eden Project; it encourages folks to come out from all across our community and further afield to share a couple of hours of friendship, fun, food; and shall take place on 1st & 2nd June 2019.

The Scotland team walkers set off from Edinburgh on the 17th May, visiting community projects in Shotts, Dunfermline, Dundee, Blairgowrie, Findhorn, Forres, Inverness, Brora, Thurso, Kirkwall, Aberdeen, Fettercairn and Brechin.

Tomorrow in Kirkwall, the walkers will put up a gazebo on Kirk Green to talk to passers by about the Big Lunch. They will then visit Voluntary Action Orkney to hear about their National Lottery funded befriending service, which supports people over the age of 60 to stay in own home for longer and currently has 21 older people matched with volunteers of all ages. Lindsey Drever, Adult Befriending Service Co-Ordinator, said “We’ve done Big Lunches in the past and made new friendships through them. I really like the way that the Eden Project are trying to knit communities together, so it’s great to be included on the Big Lunch community walk”.

Walkers

They will end their day by heading to Burray to meet the BALL (Be Active Long Life) group to hear about their plans for a Big Lunch this year.

Sandra Brown, Scotland manager for Eden Project Communities said: “People in Scotland are proud of being good neighbours, but we’re also aware that recent decades have seen the loss of that community spirit in many ways, and we don’t like it! It’s no wonder, then, that the idea of The Big Lunch as a way of rekindling those connections in the places where we live, work and play has been so warmly embraced in Scotland over the past year.”

The itinery for tomorrows event is as follows:

9:00-12:30 – The walkers will have a gazebo up on Kirk Green, handing out leaflets and talking to people about the Big Lunch.

12:30-13:30 They will visit Voluntary Action Orkney to hear about the Adult Befriending Service.

14:00-15:30 They will head to Burray to meet the Be Active Long Life (BALL) group who will be holding a Big Lunch this year for the first time and take a walk to the Italian chapel together then head back to Burray Hall for tea.

The representatives for the Scotland team are Zakia Moulaoui, founder of Invisible Cities; a Scottish social enterprise that trains local people who have experienced homelessness to become walking tour guides of their own cities – and Derek Harper, who has worked as a greenkeeper, an architectural technician, and has even run a pub, but says that volunteering and becoming part of a community has transformed his life.