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A charity that collects surplus food from London cafés and restaurants and delivers it for free to those in need is asking for your help after receiving a deluge of donations following the government’s lockdown measures.
City Harvest, based in Acton, redistributes food that would otherwise go to waste to charities across the capital, which use it to make healthy meals for vulnerable people.
Since March 17, the charity has received 20 tonnes of food a day from restaurants that have had to close during the nationwide lockdown – considerably more than the 35 tonnes it usually receives a week.
Restaurants from Nando’s and Honest Burgers to Hawksmoor and Wasabi have all sent food to the charity and it now has the help of 20 volunteers a day, rather than its usual five volunteers a week, to help them cope with the influx.
As donations increase, and food parcels are needed more than ever to make sure self-isolating vulnerable people and NHS workers on the front line don’t go hungry, the charity is asking for Londoners’ help so they can continue to deliver food to those in need.
City Harvest has set up a fundraising page asking for donations to keep its delivery vans on the road. Every £50 donated will feed 200 Londoners, while £1,000 will enable one van to deliver 10,000 meals. The fundraising target of £50,000 will keep all the charity’s vans on the road for the next five weeks.
‘Charities who rely on our food are evolving the way they reach those in isolation and unable to access their community meals. We are supplying free nutritious food to incredible projects right now who are feeding homeless people, NHS workers and community delivery groups across London,’ the charity said on its donation page. ‘We need your help to keep our vans rolling.’
Donate to City Harvest’s GoFundMe page here.
This Hackney kitchen is crowdfunding to supply free meals to the vulnerable.