Coming Together For Community

How the Big Coronation Lunch is bringing communities together for positive change!

- MEGHAN MCCORMACK

As Coronation weekend draws near, tens of thousands of events are expected to take place across the UK to celebrate an extraordinary historic event.

The Coronation Big Lunch will form a big part of the revelry. Queen Camilla has been patron of the charity that brings neighbours together since 2013.

Last year's Big Lunches to celebrate the Platinum Jubilee brought together a staggering 17.2 million people, combating loneliness and social isolation, all while raising £22 million for good causes.

One special supporter in Somerset is hamessing this year's opportunity to raise funds to support her ongoing work to build and run a community hub that will be used by 4,000 neighbours in her housing development.

Lucinda Spelman-Ives, 61, lives in a development where she runs Wilstock Hub, a community charity. "I live in a newly built community, and we've no facilities," Lucinda says. "There's no way to meet people or come together.

"To me it's relationships and connections that are the social fabric of community and life, to make us part of that common thread and bind us together.

"We needed to have a community building, so I started up the charity."

After founding the charity in 2015, Lucinda attended a Community Camp at the Eden Project to connect with other inspirational community organisers. That's where she first heard about The Big Lunch, and she hasn't looked back since.