Life @ EA

Scran Academy is a catering social enterprise that supports young people in the community. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, Scran Academy is now using its catering and community experience to provide free daily meals to the people most at risk throughout Edinburgh, including those who are too vulnerable or frail to get food for themselves.

When Scran Academy needed more space, Edinburgh Academy offered the use of the senior school kitchens, and when the school put out a call for volunteers from the 7ths leavers to help, I signed up. With my fellow 7ths volunteers, I came into school on Monday 20 April for a training day when we learnt about Scran Academy’s work, and how many people in Edinburgh are now relying on hot meals prepared by Scran Academy and delivered to their homes. The training day also highlighted the importance of PPE and the health and safety measures we need to observe to minimise the risk of any COVID-19 transmission from worker to worker, or from worker to the person receiving the food.

Scran Academy is now producing more than 4000 meals every week for vulnerable people, as well as their families, and Edinburgh Academy is now one of the main hubs for distributing the meals. There are three stages to the operation, namely cooking the food, preparing it for delivery, and then distributing it to the community. The EA 7ths volunteers are working on the preparation stage.

We each have our own workstation where we portion food into containers and then label the containers, so we know what is in each one, including any allergens. Finally we put the containers into crates, so each driver has enough food for all their deliveries. Many of the people receiving the food have individual dietary requirements, and it is essential that they receive the right meals, so we take time to package and label the food carefully.

We have been working on a rota every Monday, Wednesday and Friday since the training day. On one day we had a team of five and we managed to get over 1000 meals prepared for delivery that day. We all worked well and quickly together, keeping each other’s spirits up. Working in this environment is a new experience for most of us but we have all adapted quickly and safely, ensuring that we wear the PPE correctly and keep 2m apart at all times. ‘See it, say it, sort it’ is one of the phrases we were taught at the training and is an effective way of ensuring that we all look out for each other, and that everyone stays safe.

After two or three sessions we all got into a good routine, starting each day by dropping off our personal belongings in a classroom, washing our hands, collecting our PPE, and then getting started at our workstations. It is a good way to spend the day, and very rewarding, knowing that many people will benefit from the work we are doing. It is also good to be involved with such a worthwhile charity as Scran Academy.

You can find out more about Scran Academy on its website and about its current work during the coronavirus pandemic in this article.

Scran Academy relies on public donations to keep providing free nutritious daily meals to those who need them. Please consider supporting Scran Academy by donating on their Just Giving page.

Thank you for your support.

Archie and the EA Scran Academy Team
May 2020