Since the beginning of the COVID pandemic, Hare Krishna’s small team (just two cooks and a handful of delivery drivers) have prepared and delivered 10,000 healthy, vegetarian meals to people across East Kent.
It simply started out as an effort to help a handful of vulnerable friends and acquaintances but became much bigger. As lockdown measures are being eased, Hare Krishna are seeing an increased demand for their Sunday meal service, with more people in more towns reaching out to them every week to help feed them and their friends, families and neighbours.
They have decided to commit to serving these people in every way that they can, and are aiming to at least triple their distribution to 30,000 meals in the next 12 months, but with the resources and facilities which they currently have, they need all the help they can get!
They’ve teamed up with ‘Food For All UK’ and ‘Community Spaces’ to secure the use of a building in the centre of Canterbury where they are in the process of setting up a large kitchen capable of providing a huge number of meals. This kitchen will enable the amazing team to triple the number meals which they provide for people who need them, deliver to care homes, hospitals, homeless shelters and more, provide a huge number of volunteering opportunities for local people, and even help to reduce food waste by diverting good food from landfill.
Everything that they install will be removable and theirs to keep, meaning that, should they need to vacate the building, they can pack everything up and move it to a new venue.
They’ve already raised an incredible £3,000 but they are hoping to raise £4,000 and couldn’t do it without the community’s support. The costs will cover a fridge, storage containers for shelf-stable, cookers (hobs and ovens), commercial standard linoleum/vinyl flooring, cooking utensils (knives, chopping boards, etc), stainless steel work surfaces (to meet government hygiene regulations), PPE and other clothing for volunteers, and fire extinguishers and relevant health & safety
notices.
You don’t have to be struggling physically or financially to benefit from their project; they’ve been feeding anyone from overworked frontline keyworkers and their families, to students forced into months-long isolation thousands of miles from home.
They’ve been floored by some of the responses they’ve had, from people crying on their doorsteps (in a good way!) to children who run to answer the door every Sunday to see what’s in their meal bag; something that we all have in common is that we all need to eat, and we all want to feel loved; this is a brilliant way to achieve both of those things.
They will serve up anything from pasta and pizza to veggie curries and shepherd’s pies for the community, however, what they cook depends completely on what ingredients are available to them. They’re very lucky to have had great relationships with FareShare, Waitrose, ASDA and Morrisons over the last year or so and their kitchen manager is amazing at dreaming up healthy recipes that eradicate food waste without compromising on taste.
Hare Krishna told CommunityAd, “Our new kitchen is the beginning of a big expansion; however, we really need kitchen volunteers and drivers who are able to deliver meals. The meal deliveries have been a brilliant way for us to meet new people over the last year, and we all feel like we’re part of a caring community which makes a real difference in people’s lives; we’re really looking forward to welcoming more people into our family of volunteers! The best way to get involved is to contact us via email at [email protected]. If you’re looking to volunteer then we can’t wait to hear from you.”