Food4Heroes is back. The charity, which was founded in March 2020 to provide nutritious meals to NHS and key worker staff, is now providing meals to families in the local community who are affected by food poverty.
Following a successful pilot, the charity is working with food banks enabling them to provide cooked meals, that are easy to heat up at home, alongside their standard food parcels.
Amanda Guest, who runs Huddersfield based Guest Dining and who set up the charity alongside her brother John Brownhill, explains; “Our aim is to support the nutritional needs of food bank users whilst also alleviating some of the stress associated with cooking using only packets and tins. In the long term we hope to expand our work to include advice and education around healthy eating.
The Welcome Centre in Huddersfield has asked Food4Heroes to provide food for them to distribute to local people which we are very excited about. We are sure this is the start of many food banks who will use the offering.”
Using local chefs and caterers from local pubs and restaurants, who are currently unable to work but are wanting to keep busy, the meals are delivered to the food bank, where service users are offered a meal alongside their food parcel. The meals are nutritious and quick to prepare.
Amanda added, “Huge thanks must go to the loyal chefs, who played such a big part in phase 1 of Food4Heroes, supplying meals to NHS staff and without whom, none of this would be possible. Even though many chefs are struggling themselves during the current restrictions, they are really keen to help those in need. You can’t keep a chef out of their kitchen for long! I am delighted that it is local chef Andrew Bradley, who made the very first meals for NHS staff back in March, who will be cooking his wonderful cottage pie for the first roll out of meals to the Welcome Centre.”
The partnership scheme with food banks has been piloted in Northamptonshire where co-founder Mr Brownhill lives. The charity has been sending food for the last 8 weeks to food banks and other organisations who deliver food to those in need and was able to serve 1200 Christmas meals thanks to the financial support of corporate partner Weetabix and local catering companies.
The success of the Food4Heroes food bank scheme is dependent on charitable donations with each meal costing £2.00 each. Donations can be made via the website https://food4heroes.org.uk/donate/
Caterers, food outlets, delivery companies, electrical goods suppliers or food banks around the country can register an interest in joining the scheme by getting in touch with the Food4Heroes team https://food4heroes.org.uk/contact-us/ or by contacting Amanda Guest directly amanda@food4heroes.co.uk.
Picture Andrew Bradley and Kate Auker from the Welcome Centre
