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29 May 2025
The community group Star Light Multi Care has received the Food for Life Nourishing Communities Award, recognising their work in making good food accessible to residents of Walsall.
To achieve the award, applicants must demonstrate that they cook, grow, share skills and pledge to continue playing their part in making good food accessible in the local area.
Star Light Multi Care create sensory safe spaces for children in Walsall, including running growing and cooking activities to get children thinking about good food and where it comes from. They also distribute surplus food from supermarkets to families that attend their projects or to local homeless charities, run holiday clubs which provide a healthy hot meal for children, and ‘stay and play’ sessions for families with younger children, again offering a healthy meal option for those who attend.
We spoke to Samantha Gurdin from Star Light Multi Care about this achievement.
Nicole Cabrera, Learning Mentor at Star Light Multi Care, with their Food for Life Nourishing Communities Award.
Can you share more about what you do to make good food accessible in Walsall?
We are registered with the local supermarkets Surplus scheme. When they have surplus items of food we can collect it and distribute it to families that attend our project or donate to projects that work with homeless projects.
We run holiday clubs for children in the school holidays which provides a healthy hot meal for children. We ensure that they have a choice of food with vegetables and fruit with options for Vegetarian, Vegan and Halal choices.
We also provided a Stay and Play for families with children age 0-5 with a free breakfast consisting of toast, fruit, cereal, milk, and pastries.
Do you have a specific memory or story about how your work directly affected someone?
We were able to facilitate a smaller cooking group for children where we had a number of children with additional needs. One young person struggles in social settings and can only manage activities for a short period of time. We were able to support this young person to engage in the group and cook small meals. His parent informed us that she finds it difficult to find activities that could manage his needs so he often ‘misses’ out on activities that other children can participate in.
Why is it important that people in Walsall can access good food?
My observations of families and children in Walsall seek fast food options as they are quick and cheap. However, it is clear throughout work with Walsall Public Health that there is an obesity issue within Walsall’s young people. As such it is vital to support young people to understand the importance of nutrition for their future health. Supporting with budgeting and considering alternative options could support them financially but also health wise. The HAF program that we run is for children that are in receipt of free school meals highlighting the cost-of-living crisis we find ourselves in. Families struggle to feed their families, and we have observed children are hungry and often missing vital meals such as breakfast. As such it is highly important that the residents of Walsall can access good nutritious food.
How did you feel to achieve the first Nourishing Communities Award?
We were extremely happy to receive the first Nourishing Communities Award. Often, we work hard to provide services to families but do not see recognition for this work. We do not do it for recognition but when we as a team were notified of this award we were exited and proud that we had achieved it.
What would you say to other community groups who are thinking of applying for the award?
I would say it is definitely worth applying for the award as it gives recognition for all the good work community groups do. It also prompts groups to do more tailored work around the key areas which can only ultimately benefit the residents of Walsall.