Why get involved?

Having a Big Lunch with your neighbours can be great fun! Here are just a few reasons why it's good to sit down and eat with your community:

To stoke up community spirit – we call it ‘human warming’.
To make the third of us who live alone feel happier, closer and friendlier.
To show how local people can change a neighbourhood for good, forever.
To conquer our natural shyness by opening our curtains, doors and minds and looking out for one another.
To share stories, skills and tools, so we all end up richer in every sense.
To discover common ground across age, class, faith, race and the garden fence, and to remind ourselves that charity begins at home, or at most, a couple of doors away.

But don’t just take our word for it! Over the past four years we have asked Big Lunchers why you should have a Big Lunch, we found:

82 per cent of participants felt closer to their neighbours as a result of The Big Lunch
88 per cent of people met new people at the event
81 per cent thought the event had made a positive impact on their community (2009 – 11)
74 per cent of people feel a stronger sense of community (2012)
82 per cent of participants from 2009-2011 have kept in touch with people they had met at previous Lunches

You can read a full Local Government Information Unit report called 'The Big Lunch: Feeding Community Spirit' which looks at the social impact of The Big Lunch.

Download 'Feeding Community Spirit' here.

You’ll soon realise how many good people there are in your neighbourhood.

Do it for charity

You can, of course use The Big Lunch as a fundraising event. Lots of organisers have used their Big Lunch as an oportunity to raise money for charity. If you’d like to do this, we suggest you find a local charity with a cause you believe in – be it a hospice, a reformed offenders’ scheme or even a tortoise sanctuary!

These local charities are vitally important to our society, and they survive on love, graft and a shoestring. They need help; you can make a difference. Take a look at our Charity Fundraising page for some inspiration.