Multi-disciplinary construction company Dowds Group swapped their offices and sites for a kitchen last month to cook up a storm and provide meals for a community in London.
Dowds has partnered with Cook for Good, a non-profit organisation that works with companies to offer a combination of team building with a strong social responsibility dimension. The charity’s initiatives aim to tackle food insecurity, social isolation and health inequality in a social housing estate in King’s Cross.
Dowds Group’s London team rolled up their sleeves and worked as a team to cook up 100 delicious and nutritious meals that were available to the local community the next day.
“This is a great way for the team to bond outside of the office environment, but most importantly it was an opportunity to give back to the community,” said James Culloty, Director of Dowds Group, London. “Almost half of those living in the King Cross housing state are below the London living wage and 1 in 4 say they are facing real financial challenges, so we hope this session has a meaningful impact.”
“We loved having the Dowds Group team in the Cook for Good kitchen. They were great sports, working hard to cook up a huge amount of food for our community whilst having a load of fun along the way,” commented Miriam Emanuel, Partnerships Manager at Cook for Good. “The meals they created have been shared with two local outreach organisations, and we are investing the profits into our wider community programme, so they have created long-lasting impact, too. We would like to thank the team for choosing a charity with social impact for their teambuilding event and look forward to welcoming more teams from Dowds Group into our kitchen soon.”
Cook for Good aims to provide 8,500 meals to the community between this year and the next. The organisation’s projects also include a surplus food pantry, where members spend £3.50 a week for a basket of items worth between up to £35, a community kitchen with cooking classes for Kings Cross residents and bespoke health and wellbeing programmes for key groups that need extra support.
Dowds Group’s corporate responsibility activities are organised through their ‘Health Matters’ programme, which was established and chaired MD, James Dowds in 2018. The programmes initial remit was to look at ways of improving the physical and mental wellbeing of Dowds staff, however they quickly expanded the programme to widen the benefits derived for the business and the local communities where they operate. Today, Health Matters continues to cover a wide range of initiatives promoting good physical and mental wellbeing for the Dowds team, but also charity fundraising, sponsorship and awareness campaigns, community engagement and volunteering.
Managing Director, James Dowd said: “We’ve been in our Kings Cross Office for just over 18 months now and we feel very well established in the area. Initiatives such as Cook for Good reflect our concern for the wellbeing of the Kings Cross community and provide us with the opportunity to mark our commitment to building relationships with local residents. We hope this will be the first of many such initiatives, it is a great way to support the community whilst allowing our team to builder stronger connections.
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