From There to Here: Our Family Table cookbook is a fundraiser cookbook developed by the St. Thomas-Elgin Local Immigration Partnership
to celebrate newcomers established in Elgin County from several corners of the world.

HARDCOVER / 91 PAGES / 8.75” X 11.5” / 30 RECIPES / JANUARY 2020 / 1000 COPIES / PRINTED IN CANADA
Media production, photography and styling

12

newcomers

30

recipes

4

months in development

218

props in 6 photoshoots

91

full-colour pages

1000

hardcover copies

1 From there to Here Alieska Robles Cookbook Photographer London Ontario Canada_Artboard 1.jpg

2 From there to Here Alieska Robles Cookbook Photographer London Ontario Canada-13.jpg

3 From there to Here Alieska Robles Cookbook Photographer London Ontario Canada-02.jpg

4 From there to Here Alieska Robles Cookbook Photographer London Ontario Canada-06.jpg

5 From there to Here Alieska Robles Cookbook Photographer London Ontario Canada-11.jpg

6 From there to Here Alieska Robles Cookbook Photographer London Ontario Canada-09.jpg

7 From there to Here Alieska Robles Cookbook Photographer London Ontario Canada-03.jpg

8 From there to Here Alieska Robles Cookbook Photographer London Ontario Canada-01.jpg

9 From there to Here Alieska Robles Cookbook Photographer London Ontario Canada-10.jpg

10 From there to Here Alieska Robles Cookbook Photographer London Ontario Canada-12.jpg

11 From there to Here Alieska Robles Cookbook Photographer London Ontario Canada-05.jpg

12 From there to Here Alieska Robles Cookbook Photographer London Ontario Canada-08.jpg

13 From there to Here Alieska Robles Cookbook Photographer London Ontario Canada-07.jpg

Purpose

Civic and social inclusion is directly tied to an immigrant’s integration process. STEP believes that the integration of immigrants is a two-way street; community members must be willing to welcome newcomers just as much as newcomers must be willing to settle in our community.

Community readiness means providing the community with the knowledge and tools to welcome immigrants successfully. The cookbook From There To Here: Our Family Table was designed to reinforce this concept while celebrating some of the region's newcomers.

The book features cultures including Cambodian, Taiwanese, Japanese, Sudanese, Polish, British, Low German, Transylvanian Saxon, Colombian, and Jamaican. The fundraiser initiative helped bridge some of the inclusion gaps while providing additional funds for STELIP to continue growing in its mission.

Process

With the support of the STELIP team, we gathered background information about the cookbook’s participants and created detailed style guides to represent their cultures with distinctive plates and props.

With prop stylist Amanda Devries, we created individual drafts and tablescapes for each recipe and experimented with different lighting setups to create diverse moods throughout the book.

Chanraksmey from Cambodia • Shao from Taiwan • Make from Japan • Lina from Sudan • Sandra from Poland • Sofia and Erika from Transylvania • Ryan from England • Sarah from Germany • Marian and Davinson from Colombia • Delroy from Jamaica

St. Thomas-Elgin Local Immigration Partnership

STELIP is a collaborative community initiative that aims to build welcoming, caring, and inclusive communities by supporting the integration of immigrants and promoting the value of diversity.

Their initiatives include discrimination research and immigrant surveys to learn about immigrant experiences and challenges. Education and community-integration efforts are at the core of their mission, for which they work with municipalities to provide language classes, spaces to connect, improved accessibility of services, and opportunities to fill labour gaps.