09/08/2026
🤔 “How do you run so many community workshops for free?!” 💸✨
It’s a question we get asked all the time! Grow Cook Learn is a food literacy program under the London Community Resource Centre (LCRC), a local non-profit dedicated to food security and health. Making our hands-on workshops accessible to everyone - regardless of financial barriers - is at the very core of what we do.
Making that happen on a non-profit budget takes careful coordination, incredible community partners, and lots of behind-the-scenes care. Here is how we make it work:
🎟️ A Thoughtful Ticketing Model
On our Dandelion Events page, we use an accessible ticketing structure tailored to each group:
- Youth Workshops (Ages 12–25): Always 100% free (plus participants receive $20 in Harvest Bucks vouchers)!
- All-Ages Public Workshops: Operate on a sliding "Pay-What-You-Can" donation model. Whether someone contributes $0, covers the cost of their ingredients, or donates a bit extra to support a neighbour, every dollar goes directly back into buying ingredients for future sessions.
📊 Dedicated Budgeting & Fair Wages
Every workshop is designed around an intentional $200 budget for groceries, equipment, and pantry supplies. But great programming goes beyond just the food on the prep table—that budget doesn't account for venue fees or staff coordination. As an organization, ensuring our staff earn a living wage for the hours they spend testing recipes, planning logistics, and facilitating in the kitchen is an essential priority!
🏛️ Support from Community Foundation Grants
To cover fair staffing wages, overhead, and operating costs, we rely on generous charitable foundations that believe in food security and community health. We are deeply grateful to our major grant supporters:
- Lutheran Social Services Foundation
- The Walter J. Blackburn Foundation
- Westminster College Foundation
🤝 Venue Partnerships: Non-Profits Sticking Together!
We believe community organizations thrive best when we support one another, and affordable venue partnerships keep our doors open:
- Growing Chefs! Ontario: Generously provides their incredible downtown learning kitchen space for our youth workshops at an excellent cost.
- The City of London at East Lions Community Centre: Provides us with a non-profit discount so we can host our weekend all-ages sessions in their modern, fully accessible community kitchen.
🌟 Our Youth Partnership with YWHO
We are incredibly proud to partner with Youth Wellness Hub London-Middlesex (YWHO) actively connects and gathers youth from across our community to join our sessions, and they alternate venue rental payments every other month with us. It is an excellent partnership that brings youth together to advance their nutrition literacy in a welcoming, safe space for socializing and building community connections.
🌱 Fresh Produce from Westview Community Garden
We also grow our own food! Through a wonderful partnership with Westview Baptist Church , we borrow land to run the Westview Community Garden.
- Most garden plots are rented at a very accessible, low cost to community members to grow their own fresh produce.
- Dedicated garden plots are reserved specifically for Grow Cook Learn! Our team strategically plans, plants, and harvests seasonal vegetables—like fresh garlic, greens, and squash—to go straight from the garden beds into our workshop recipes.
It truly takes a village to keep our kitchens cooking! 💛
If you’d like to help us continue offering accessible, hands-on food literacy programming across London, donations of any amount are always deeply appreciated:
➡️ https://lcrc.on.ca/donate
To check out what workshops are coming up next, visit: https://dandelion.events/o/growcooklearn/events
