The Big Lunch is an annual one-day get together where communities and neighbours join together and organise anything from a simple lunch to a full-blown street party with DJs and a home cooked feast. It aims to increase community cohesion, get people outside talking and sharing food together.

The Big Lunch is an ideal event for the Community Space Challenge projects as it engages the young people with their community and gives them an opportunity to lead an event, get project management experience and the satisfaction of seeing their community come together due to their own actions and hard work.

The first CSC Big Lunch took place in 2009, run by our CSC delivery partner; Environmental Challenge for Young People, Goole. They held the event of their allotment, a previously neglected space that has been transformed by their young people into a large scale allotment site. A bouncy castle, pig on the spit and entertainment brought in the local community with over 300 people attending on the day.

Inspired by their previous success they ran the event again in 2010 and this time had well over 400 local people attend their event. They also inspired several other projects to hold their own Big Lunches and CSC young people also ran events in Southwark, North Islington, Bristol, Birmingham, Derby, Bradford and Wakefield

Tim Loughton, Parliamentary Undersecretary for Children and Families even attended the event held by St. Georges Community Hub in Birmingham, taking part in a football tournament and enjoying the amazing food cooked by African-Caribbean families from the surrounding estates. 

(click here for The Big Lunch website)