Totnes Community Potluck, which takes place on the third Friday of every month, is a great way to beat the blues. Run by the Network of Wellbeing, Green Lane Films Director Emma Goude went along to find out how eating together helps with wellbeing. The results are astounding.
The Network of Wellbeing commissioned this film as part of a funding application for the Carnegie UK Trust – Enabling State project. Green Lane Films decided to focus on the mental health benefits of a single mum who found the community potluck a lifeline.
Single Mum, Yarrow Wolfe, couldn’t afford to pay for a baby sister or go out to nice restaurants. So sharing food in a communal setting is a perfect way for her to socialise.
“I can go from being so inward and feeling so hopeless and it can change like that…where I’m in a situation where it’s open and people are friendly…We need these space.” Yarrow Wolfe.
This Community Potluck is one of a long list of local projects that the Network of Wellbeing helped set up by providing start up funding to help them get off the ground. Totnes is so full of people with great ideas who genuinely care about the world around them. The Network of Wellbeing is a bridge between local philanthropists and social entrepreneurs.
When Yarrow walks into the Totnes Civic Hall on a Friday evening she immediately feels her depression lifting. It is a buzz with people milling around and smiling welcoming smiles. It gives her the opportunity to be around other adults and to have grown up conversations. Human connection is essential to wellbeing. It’s not rocket science!