SOUP Kitchen London

Brief description of project and why it is needed:

The Divine Love Soup kitchen started in Oct 2020 during the pandemic to address the issue of hunger among homeless people and food poverty among people and the vulnerable in the community. We have been serving the community since then reaching out to the poor and the vulnerable that come to us. We provide hot meals, drinks, dry food, hygiene products, blankets, clothes and other things to the homeless and any in the community. We visit the house bound and supply food to the hostel for the homeless and vulnerable women. 

We provide warmth, companionship, and the shared communal experience of dining with others, which can be especially valued by people such as homeless people, pensioners, widowers and the vulnerable. Our project helps to alleviate food poverty among poor members of the community near and far. 

It has been a unique way of providing to the homeless and low income in the area at the weekend. It can be described as the link between the community and service providers as we also provide information about services around for the homeless. 

Recently we are having more people as statistics have shown that the numbers of homeless and very low income have increased considerably in the current economy. It provides an opportunity for the homeless to meet up and integrate with other members of the community.

The project is an ongoing concern, and we are hoping to keep it sustained in the foreseeable future: We have served over 500 plates of food and seen over 250 people since we started in 2020.

As we continuously advertised and promoted in the community. It is announced in church parishes.

We also printed leaflets with description of the services provided and address of its location.

The feedback we are getting has shown us the impact we are making. Each time food is served the enquiries and needs are requested it is noted and that has provided the needs and improvement of the project.

This is a project that has continuously served meals on weekends since Oct 2020. Now it is done twice in a month which is the second and the last weekend of the month, but it is something that we propose to do weekly if we had the funds and resources.

Presently we are using the church hall at English Martyrs catholic church, 2, Mitcham Lane, SW16 2EE for the soup kitchen. This space does not have any facilities to cook big pots and storage.

We would need support to continue the good work we are doing for the community. We would like to get support to have a permanent working place to cook and store our food. We need cooking storage facilities to enable us to maximise some food donations we receive from supermarkets. We are impacting the community and renewing the lives and combating loneliness. With support and funds, we are planning to provide our services weekly as against the biweekly cooking which we currently engage in.

So, we are looking forward to getting a bigger kitchen, fridge and storage. This will help with the current difficulty of cooking large portions and storage of food items.