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At the end of March 2023 Tertulia Group organized an amazing event to empower local connections and sharing sustainability values. It was the first Disco Soupe ever organized in Vicchio.
We had such a great time and the event was very well welcomed. In fact we met people enthusiast of participating with us offering their time and passion. All this was possible thanks to the commitment of the Tertulia group (Greta, Simon, Yashu, Gianluca, Konya, Lorenzo, Arya, Linda, Arnau, Aurelie, Giorgia, Francesco) and some Colivers (Laura, Stefano, Cesar, Lina, Francesca) that participated actively.
We want to share here not just our experience but also tips on how to organize a Disco soupe and how such events can empower local connections and sharing of sustainability values. So we will present all steps of our action and if you would like to organize a Disco soupe close to your Coliving, Hub, Community, Space you will find insipirations and practical infos.
Disco Soupe is about awareness of food waste, community building, fun. Infact we saved 230 kg of food from wasting and trasformed it into a deliciuos lunch for 70 people. More than 20 people participated actively cooking in groups while listening to a dj playing music. And we had a live concert during lunch! If you are curious about Disco soupe origin, please visit this website (out of maintenance but still active). Keep in mind the main values: use just wasted food, involve people in participating from the cooking, invite dj or musicians, it’s a free event.
The energy of a group of motivated people is the engine of a volunteering action.
We started thinking about disco soupe because one member of Tertulia group is active in Disco soupe organization since a few year (disco soupe Firenze) and we participated to some of them and it was amazing.
Around the Coliving a diffuse community is growing and we regularly meet to share ideas, propose projects, help each other and of course celebrate. A strong motivation arised around this event as we really aimed in connecting with local community sharing our values.
Keep in mind that a group process is also dealing with preventing – solving conflicts, leadership problems, decision making….
Everyone of the group was involved in making a list of all the shops, markets, farmers etc that we thought were able to give food for the event.
We planned organizational meetings in the bar in the central square of the village: this was a good way to be open and visible by respect to local community. Than we visited each one of the selected places explaining the project and asking for interest and promise in offering food unsold that would be wasted.
In this stage is better to already know the date of the event and the place where you want to organize it (in our case a local association in the main square of the village). We also prepared a flyer to present the event and start advertising on local newspaper, radio, word of mouth etc
Finally the day has come! We met at 9 am with the group of 20 participants.
After a short dynamic to learn the name of each other we did a group brainstorming of possible recipies and chose the favourite ones to build a menu. Than we shared in groups to start cooking each of the recipies with the goal of being ready for 1 am when all other people were invited for lunch. And… music, chatting, sharing while transforming all the ‘not wasted’ food in a delicious lunch.
By the way: disco soupe it’s mostly vegan, as there is usually a lot of bread and similar, vegetables, fruits, but no meat and products that cannot stay out of the fridge because it’s important to offer a healthy and safe lunch. It’s all about being creative and merge local recipies, international ones, finding compromise and substituting requested ingredients with the available recovered food.
Everybody was working a lot but when the lunch was ready it was a great satisfacion, expressed with big smiles welcoming the people joining for the lunch.
We explained briefly what we had done, focusing on reducing food waste as a good sustainability practice and that the event was planned and run by a group of people new on the territory attracted by the Coliving.
The connection between coliving people and locals was than activated and the good vibe of the whole event was so well perceived that the conclusion of the day was: when are we doing a next disco soupe?
