The Lindley Group – whose sports stadia division, Lindley Venue Catering, provides all of the catering services at Tottenham Hotspur FC’s White Hart Lane – has teamed up with the Tottenham Hotspur Foundation and the Enfield Council Market Gardening Project to fund and deliver a Grow and Cook project to 10 primary schools in the local area, while the Foundation’s coaches will provide a six-week programme of football coaching sessions at the schools.
The new joint initiative dovetails into all of the five focus areas of the Tottenham Hotspur Foundation:
Health & Wellbeing; Education; Sports Development; Community Development; and Equalities & Inclusion; and forms an integral part of The Lindley Group’s CSR policy which includes promoting healthy eating and nutrition, and actively engaging with the communities around the sites at which it operates.
The Grow and Cook programme involves teachers from the participating schools attending a half day session at Capel Manor Horticultural College to learn about growing vegetables from seed and making raised vegetable beds. Capel Manor Horticultural College has also supplied all of the seeds for the project, with Lindley and Enfield Council jointly funding other equipment being provided to the schools to enable them to grow herbs and vegetables.
Two chefs from The Lindley Group’s team based at White Hart Lane will be visiting each school to perform a practical cooking demonstration using the ingredients that the children are growing. The children will also receive an ‘Eat Like A Footballer’ Tottenham Hotspur Foundation cookery book developed by Lindley and designed by the Foundation.
The project will culminate in a ‘farmers market’ be held at Tottenham Square at White Hart Lane later this month (July). The event will be attended by local producers and Lindley chefs will also provide live cooking demonstrations and children from the schools will get a free behind the scenes stadium tour.