Digbeth Dining Club announces the launch of its very own Community Interest Company and starts work with Bring It On Brum
The award-winning events and venue operators, Digbeth Dining Club (DDC), have formed a not for profit, community interest company (CIC) that will aim to help people living in high levels of poverty.
The ‘DDC CIC’ will provide benefit to people living in the West Midlands including in areas of high social deprivation across the region, with a focus on young people and families.
Through its planned schemes, the initiative will focus on four key areas – Health, Empowerment, Learning, Providing Sustainability.
As the CIC launches it has already achieved a position as the core provider for the Holiday, Activities with Food Programme (HAF) called ‘Bring It On Brum’, a national governmental scheme. Over the Summer holidays period the CIC will be operating across Birmingham to provide and distribute up to 20,000 meals a week over the 6 week break. As part of the enrichment this will include producing cooking videos, online resources and in person workshops which will be accessible to all families, at absolutely no cost.
The decision to form a CIC has developed after nearly 10 months of working within the local community to provide free school meals to children.
Back in October 2020, the team at Digbeth Dining Club were inspired by the well documented actions of the footballer Marcus Rashford, so decided to do their bit to try and tackle the issue of food poverty in Birmingham.
Teaming up with local MP’s, councillors, charities and independent food traders, the team at Digbeth DIning Club went on to prep and deliver over 20,000 free meals to children in the area as well as providing a full Christmas dinner hamper to 500 more on Christmas Eve.
Speaking of the decision to set up a CIC, Jack Brabant, a Director at Digbeth Dining Club said: “This has been several months in the making so we are delighted to finally be able to get this off the ground.
“Providing and delivering the free-school meals over Winter as we did was an incredibly rewarding and moving experience for us but collectively we decided that we didn’t want to just sit still and leave it at that.
“The idea to develop what we were doing into something more concrete was floated around at the start of the year, so to be here finally with so many fantastic ideas and initiatives in the pipeline is incredibly exciting for us. Bring It On Brum is a great starting point to continue the need for support across the City and the good work that people like Marus Rashford brought to the countries attention”
The full list of board members for the DDC CIC includes:
Jack Brabant, Director at Digbeth DIning Club
Mark Laurie, Director at the National Catering Association (NCASS)
Sarah Ventre, Owner of Full of Chaat.
Lee Fisher, Head of Careers at Access Creative College.
Helen Sephton, CEO of The Project Birmingham
BVoices is committed in supporting communities across south west Birmingham and surrounding by keeping them informed and engaged. Please see the following:
• Community Chat for south west Birmingham • Coronavirus support
• Community Classroom – Resources for parents & carers
• Community Together • Mental Health & Wellbeing through COVID-19
• Community Kindness • Positive acts during the COVID-19 outbreak
• SW Brum Camera Club – for the love of the lens – Photography Birmingham
• SWBrum Jobs Page
• Community Recycle – Repurpose & Reuse – SW Birmingham & Surrounding
