Help the Hungry: Every day people ask if we can help – thanks to you, the answer is yes

Every day from the early hours to late at night my team are producing meals from the facilities that have been kindly provided to us

I want to tell you about the people we are able to help this Christmas thanks to the generosity of your donations and our appeal with The Independent.

There is the single mother, a cancer survivor with a three-year-old child, who wrote to us saying: “I can’t leave the house. We have been eating ice cream for three days. Can you help?” The answer, thanks to this appeal, was: “Yes. We can help.”

There is the person unable to leave their property who contacted us saying: “I receive food from the council but I can’t pay for my electricity. How am I going to cook it?” The answer, thanks to this appeal, was: “Don’t worry, we can deliver you hot meals. We can help.”

Every day as a result of the money being donated, my charity, With Compassion, can help about 1,400 people just like these two to make sure they get the food they need this Christmas.

To do this we have set up an emergency kitchen in London Scottish House in Victoria. Every day from the early hours to late at night my team are producing meals from the facilities that have been kindly provided to us. Each day our food truck goes around delivering the food to those who need it.

If you have not seen it already on the streets then you will hopefully have seen it featured in The Independent, joined by celebrities such as Strictly Come Dancing judge Shirley Ballas and The Crown actress Emma Corrin.

It has been humbling the way they and so many others have volunteered to distribute the hot meals we produce to help those whose lives have been hit by Covid. I have always believed that it is a sense of community that holds us together. Helping others through difficulty is how community starts.  

Throughout 2020, thousands of people have supported those around them who needed help, from driving people to hospital or getting groceries for elderly neighbours.

But, this Christmas, food poverty is at an all-time high. One in five children in London are now feared to be at risk of going hungry.

That is why we are doing all we can to help those who are at their most desperate.

Since lockdown in March we have provided 500,000 meals to those in need.  

To keep doing this, we need your donations. It is the money that Independent readers give this month to the appeal that enables With Compassion to deliver this service. Your donations mean the cancer survivor who wrote to us can know she will receive the food she needs to feed her three-year-old child.

Please donate today.

This November and December we will be delivering food directly to 1,000 people a day through our partner With Compassion. Please donate here to help us do all we can to ensure no one goes hungry this Christmas.