Haggerston Hot Meals
Donation protected
We are providing a daily hot meal to 150 - 200 people in the Haggerston and wider Hackney community who have found themselves in a vulnerable position as a result of COVID-19. We have been doing this for one month already, and aim to do it for as long as we can. We are reliant on donations from the community, whether it's monetary, ingredients, spaces, or time. We have a changing and varied group of recipients, from those who are recovering from the illness, those experiencing financial difficulties from the illness, those self isolating as a result of the illness, or those who just need some neighbourly support in these crazy and surreal times. We support anyone in any situation, of any faith, of any background. We are working with families with young children to elderly individuals to street homeless people and everyone in between. We are also now receiving referrals from local organisations who are asking us to send them food. These include councils, Women's Aid, Age UK East London, the L&Q Housing Association, the Hackney Migrant Centre and some healthcare services. More information on our story and supporters is below - thank you for any help you are able to give. Haggerston Mutual Aid.
OUR STORY SO FAR...
We started doing hot meals to those in the community over the Easter weekend when A Plate For London and Queen Mary's University kindly donated us some of their food. We saw there was a need for long term meals, and partnered with Suleymaniye Mosque on Kingsland Road to provide daily hot meals to the community (of any faith) across Ramadan. We also had further donations of food from Queen Mary's University and help from St. Michael and All Angels Church, so we started this Go Fund Me to tide us over a couple of weekends in between. The support grew at an amazing rate, and soon we had enough support to do more meals than we initially hoped. We formed a rota of tens of professional chefs, dozens of kitchen helpers, and even more delivery volunteers and co-ordinators, who started ensuring 200 meals went out daily to individuals, families, and charities across Hackney. We have just moved to Pub on the Park who have kindly offered their kitchen for us to use while they can't. We're applying for grants to keep the funding coming, and asking supermarkets and suppliers to donate as much as they can, but we do need money to buy ingredients, packaging, and pay for things like insurance. For anyone able to help, we would welcome any amount - we are not a registered charity, but we are being governed by Charity officials, and are spending every penny we receive on crucial things we need to keep feeding those who need it.
Thank you so much for any support you can give - it's hugely appreciated.
James, Kat, Caroline, Harry and all involved in Haggerston Mutual Aid :-)
ORIGINAL POSTS FOR REFERENCE...
I've recently been cooking and distributing food through some London food banks, ensuring families and individuals who are particularly vulnerable as a result of COVID-19 get daily hot meals. People have asked how they can help, so... For the next two weekends I'm cooking 150 meals a day, 600 in total. I'm aiming to do yummy, hearty, healthy dishes for £3 per meal. I'm therefore looking to raise £1800 for food and £200 more for costs like packaging and kitchen hire. The meals will be going out this weekend (2-3 May) and next weekend (9-10 May) so any contributions towards this would be very gratefully received.
**UPDATE** Your donations have been incredibly generous and the target to cook meals for two weekends was hit very quickly - thank you. I've now added more weekends on to the schedule (16-17 May and working out future dates) so please keep donating if you are able to. Thank you so much!!
For clarity: this is being done through a Hackney community initiative where vulnerable people have asked for help, either because they are self isolating and are unable to shop and cook, they are elderly and are receiving reduced support, they are struggling financially as a result of their income drying up, they are not receiving free school meals for their children due to schools being closed, they are homeless, or they fall through the cracks of our welfare system and need our support for some other, genuine reason. This is not through an official charity (I have worked previously with The Red Cross, Hackney Winter Night Shelter and Lives Not Knives on similar initiatives) but instead is just a short term, community initiative to provide some immediate help to those asking for it in these strange and unknowing times. All money will go direct to either ingredients, packaging, kitchen hire, or costs directly linked to cooking and distributing the food. If anyone wants a breakdown of funds afterwards I will happily supply.
Thank you for any contribution, it's very much appreciated.
James X
OUR STORY SO FAR...
We started doing hot meals to those in the community over the Easter weekend when A Plate For London and Queen Mary's University kindly donated us some of their food. We saw there was a need for long term meals, and partnered with Suleymaniye Mosque on Kingsland Road to provide daily hot meals to the community (of any faith) across Ramadan. We also had further donations of food from Queen Mary's University and help from St. Michael and All Angels Church, so we started this Go Fund Me to tide us over a couple of weekends in between. The support grew at an amazing rate, and soon we had enough support to do more meals than we initially hoped. We formed a rota of tens of professional chefs, dozens of kitchen helpers, and even more delivery volunteers and co-ordinators, who started ensuring 200 meals went out daily to individuals, families, and charities across Hackney. We have just moved to Pub on the Park who have kindly offered their kitchen for us to use while they can't. We're applying for grants to keep the funding coming, and asking supermarkets and suppliers to donate as much as they can, but we do need money to buy ingredients, packaging, and pay for things like insurance. For anyone able to help, we would welcome any amount - we are not a registered charity, but we are being governed by Charity officials, and are spending every penny we receive on crucial things we need to keep feeding those who need it.
Thank you so much for any support you can give - it's hugely appreciated.
James, Kat, Caroline, Harry and all involved in Haggerston Mutual Aid :-)
ORIGINAL POSTS FOR REFERENCE...
I've recently been cooking and distributing food through some London food banks, ensuring families and individuals who are particularly vulnerable as a result of COVID-19 get daily hot meals. People have asked how they can help, so... For the next two weekends I'm cooking 150 meals a day, 600 in total. I'm aiming to do yummy, hearty, healthy dishes for £3 per meal. I'm therefore looking to raise £1800 for food and £200 more for costs like packaging and kitchen hire. The meals will be going out this weekend (2-3 May) and next weekend (9-10 May) so any contributions towards this would be very gratefully received.
**UPDATE** Your donations have been incredibly generous and the target to cook meals for two weekends was hit very quickly - thank you. I've now added more weekends on to the schedule (16-17 May and working out future dates) so please keep donating if you are able to. Thank you so much!!
For clarity: this is being done through a Hackney community initiative where vulnerable people have asked for help, either because they are self isolating and are unable to shop and cook, they are elderly and are receiving reduced support, they are struggling financially as a result of their income drying up, they are not receiving free school meals for their children due to schools being closed, they are homeless, or they fall through the cracks of our welfare system and need our support for some other, genuine reason. This is not through an official charity (I have worked previously with The Red Cross, Hackney Winter Night Shelter and Lives Not Knives on similar initiatives) but instead is just a short term, community initiative to provide some immediate help to those asking for it in these strange and unknowing times. All money will go direct to either ingredients, packaging, kitchen hire, or costs directly linked to cooking and distributing the food. If anyone wants a breakdown of funds afterwards I will happily supply.
Thank you for any contribution, it's very much appreciated.
James X
Organizer
James Emtage
Organizer