The Dinner Table Project

Overview

The Dinner Table Project is a 6-week family cooking program where adults and kids cook healthy home-cooked meals and share dinner together. The program is open to families from the Shellharbour area who have at least one child aged 8+ years old (including younger siblings) and is designed to build capacity that will empower families that need it most to spend more time together and have conversations as well as prepare, cook and eat healthy home-cooked meals

Aim

To strengthen and empower families, building stronger family units while also improving individual health and wellbeing. Key measures of success include participant confidence levels, knowledge of Australian Dietary Guidelines, intake of recommended serves of fruit and vegetables, and any changes relating to eating at the table as a family.

Objectives

By creating a supportive and enabling environment, families are empowered to increase their cooking skills, healthy eating knowledge, confidence levels and social connection with their children and other parents, with the overall aim to enable adults to positively influence the health and wellbeing of their families. Key objectives at to:

• Build stronger family units by spending time cooking and eating together
• Improve individual health and wellbeing through increased nutrition knowledge and cooking skills
• Build friendships with people different families
• Link families with host community organisations which can provide other services

Social Impact

Every $1 invested by HCA

$1

returns $2 in social and economic value

$2

What’s involved

The Dinner Table Project is facilitated by our community dietitians and highly trained volunteers. Each week for 6 weeks, three to four families come together to cook, eat dinner and clean up!. Groups usually run 5 – 7:30pm on Tuesday evenings for 6 weeks.

How it works

Each group includes six ‘hands on’ sessions of 2.5 hours each. Families come together, meet new people and cook and eat dinner together each week. We also discuss a different nutrition, health, and sustainability related topic each week:

• Kitchen and food safety
• What is healthy eating?
• Food Detective (understanding food labels)
• Food storage
• How to prepare a healthy lunch box

Testimonial

“I enjoy the closeness and ability to cook with my kids uninterrupted without the outside noise and pressure of everyday life”

Parent, May 2024

“I love the feeling of community that you feel doing The Dinner Table Project. Everyone is so friendly and inviting. I enjoyed the jokes shared while we all ate together.”

Parent, May 2024