A Moray youth group has opened a new £300,000 community kitchen to inspire students to serve up their own meals.
Elgin Youth Cafe has been putting the ingredients behind the ambitious project together for the last two years.
Yesterday the group described the bright and inviting room as “unrecognisable” from what had been there before.
After months of clearing out the old room and building an extension workshops are now ready to start in the gleaming kitchen classroom this week.
Six training spaces have been created for youngsters to watch and learn to build their cooking skills.
Community kitchen manager Penny Hamilton said: “We had a very small kitchen there before. It was only used for providing food for functions like drop-in evenings. It’s going to be an amazing facility now.
“It’s fully equipped with ovens and utensils for six stations, so we can have up to 12 students there at any time.
“What we really want to do is promote healthy living by teaching people how to cook and prepare their own meals. It’s all about building life skills that may not have been covered elsewhere.”
The cafe is run by the Elgin Youth Development Group, which targets young people not in employment, education or training.
Other charitable groups in Moray have already showed an interest in hiring the new kitchen for their own courses.
Mrs Hamilton is hopeful that more organisations coming onboard will help to make the sparkling facility sustainable.
Highlands and Islands Enterprise, the Robertson Trust and the Big Lottery all supported fundraising efforts with grants.
Chief officer of Elgin Youth Development Group, Neil Millward, is excited that the opening of the new cafe will allow them to reach even more youngsters.
He said: “We are always looking at ways to broaden the reach of the projects we run and reach more into the community. Catering and cooking were areas we identified quite a long time ago because it’s focused on a wide age-group.
“We’ve felt there more workshops we could be running because some people don’t quite fit into what we already offer.”
