Charities, volunteers and local businesses are coming together across London to provide homeless young people with nutritious meals during the coronavirus pandemic.
The Ned, the hotel and members’ club in the City, and The Bike Shed Motorcycle Club, the creative community space and restaurant in Shoreditch, have teamed up with the UK’s leading youth homelessness charity Centrepoint to ensure that young people living in hostels across London are provided with at least one full meal every day.
A team of 42 members of staff from The Ned have been volunteering on alternative days and preparing the meals in the hotel’s production kitchen. Motorcyclists from The Bike Shed’s 1000-strong nationwide community of volunteer riders have been delivering over 100 meals a day to homeless young people living in Centrepoint hostels across town.
Fare Share, the UK’s largest charity fighting hunger and food waste, has been donating and delivering ingredients to The Ned, in order for their volunteer chefs to create dishes including bangers and mash, duck ragu with noodles, Mexican bean and tofu stew, and mushroom and vegetable soup. In addition to providing meals for Centrepoint, The Ned volunteer chefs are also making an additional 150 meals per day for homeless charity The Passage that support homeless people in Central London.
To ensure these meals get into the hands of those that need it most, all pick-up and deliveries to Centrepoint hostels are being organised and run by the ‘Bike Shed Community Response’ team – the nationwide task force of on-call, volunteer riders mobilised and managed by The Bike Shed Motorcycle Club staff. The vetted volunteer riders are comprised of The Bike Shed customers, members, and followers – all of whom have come together to provide vital support and free courier-like services to the vulnerable during the COVID-19 crisis.
POWtv CEO and Centrepoint supporter, Rosemary Reed, introduced the opportunity for Centrepoint to benefit from this initiative with The Ned, in addition to donating the film crew used to produce and edit video coverage of the program in action.
