Office worker James Varley has taken a break from spreadsheets at home during lockdown to turn his hand to cooking as a volunteer at a mental heath project in Bow.
He has started cooking on Sundays at Coxley House residential scheme in Bow Road run by the L&Q housing association that he works for in Stratford, after completing food hygiene and safeguarding training before being allowed to volunteer.
“Their usual cook has been having to self-isolate,” the father-of-two explained. “So I go down and making a Sunday roast for them. The staff are on the front line and it didn’t feel right to have spare time and not go down and help.”
The housing organisation has offered its staff the chance to help out at the schemes it runs after being inundated with requests to volunteer.
The experience for 39-year-old James is a break from lockdown life with wife Lorna and children Layla, 13, and Felix, 11, who are all healthy, so “it felt good doing something outside the home”. It also gives him face-to-face interaction with other people.
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