Saturday, February 27, 2016

Saturday night with One Third Homeless Soup Kitchen

“I was planning on my future as a homeless person. I had a really good spot picked out.” Larry Lingle

Saturday night and I’m hitting the town centre with Shahel and Lord Kam. There’s plenty of revelry but this is a get together with a slightly different groove.

We are part of the One Third team catching up and serving our homeless guests with food. It’s a great opportunity to recharge our inner selves and we look forward to this weekly catch up with great gusto. Take Kam for example – He’s a hugely successful entrepreneur. He could just pump cash into this project as part of his contribution. It would be loose change for him. But Kam is not one to shy away. He insists on going front line with this, rolling up his sleeves and serving. This is real inspiration, no talk, no poses, no glamour, just real hard graft.

During my last shift a lady guest asked me for sanitary items and it got me hopping mad. Does it ever occur to us that what we take for granted; toothbrushes, paste, sanitary products are unattainable luxuries for some of our less well off fellow humans? I put an appeal out and boom! My mates Ruks and Zak supplied big bags of face towels, dental products, shampoo, Tampax, you name it. I got in touch with Sanitary Owl and received a mammoth stock of sanitary pads to distribute. If you require a bespoke personally decorated owl mail delivered box of all the absorbencies you need then do check out Sanitary Owl. In fact I’ve had so much stock that I’ve split it fifty fifty with the rest going to The Whitechapel Mission. The generosity of you people is beyond description.

My mate Moklis gave me the food tonight. His aunt has passed away recently and he provided the food in her memory. We pray that her soul is blessed. The chicken biryani was delicious and our pop up kitchen popped down in record time. It’s cold and our regulars are usually sipping a hot chocolate in McDonalds, taking it slowly and nursing it for a few hours. Anything is better than sitting out in the big freeze outside right? During the harsh winter they sit like leopards waiting for a herd of gazelles. They sense our presence, come out, grab the food boxes, a fork, a water bottle, tissue. Some high five, fist pump, shake hands or hug us. In winter the exchange is brief – It’s too cold. Billy was in a dirty mood tonight and was a barrel of laughs. The toothbrushes, paste, face towels, sanitary pads were handed out to grateful punters. There were still some left over.


If you would like to contribute anything then please do get in touch.

www.sanitaryowl.com

#Homeless #Homelessness #LondonHomeless #HomelessGuests #SoupKitchen

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