In the wake of Covid-19, FEAST With Us staff and volunteers have seamlessly stepped up to ameliorate the suffering of those facing food poverty as the numbers increased. When lockdown was announced, despite the obvious need, it felt impossible for our services to continue, as community centres closed their doors and supermarket food stores ran dry. With determination, we called on the local councils in which FEAST With Us operated, Camden and Islington, to carefully consider their Food Poverty Action Plans, and sure enough FEAST With Us was immediately declared an Essential Service.
Throughout this troubling period, FEAST With Us has grown into a food parcel delivery service across five boroughs in North and South London, providing services in multiple sites for over one thousand vulnerable adults per week. As well as retaining our valued historical connections, Sapphire Independent Housing, Mind, LIDL, Aldi, Gail’s and Sainsbury’s, we have forged strong new partnerships with more retailers and community centres than ever before, including The Felix Project, Haringey Play, Oddbox, The OXO Tower, SPCA, SHP and JW3. We cannot thank our collaborators enough for readily opening their doors to FEAST With Us exclusively, to enable increasing operations. They too have been essential in the fight against food poverty.
Thanks to our incredible growing team of skilled, furloughed and dedicated volunteers, we have a competent and cohesive workforce supporting numerous vulnerable people suffering food poverty London. The staff have worked tirelessly, with limited funding and resources available, and have weathered the turbulence with each storm, to ensure that those who need food consistently receive it from FEAST With Us despite the constant changes. It has been a privilege to lead such an outstanding team, and I am enormously proud of what they have achieved in such extraordinary circumstances.
As food poverty is set to increase, the work of FEAST With Us becomes ever-more important in maintaining the wellbeing and health of a growing number of vulnerable people through continued service provision and a collaborative approach to forming food poverty policy and strategy at the local government level. At the mid-point of the year, we are left with very few reserves to sustain our crucial staff posts, so we are calling on any donors who can support us to continue to provide our much-needed services at this critical time.
Thank you for being a part of the fight against food poverty with FEAST With Us.
Hannah Style – Founder & Chairwoman
