The crisis over the coronavirus goes on.

Hope has made dramatic changes to its services.

Our day centre remains closed until the end of lockdown, but we continue to provide extensive services to rough sleepers in hotels:

– We visit every person everyday, checking their needs and delivering 3 meals 7 days a week, along with clothes, other essential, toiletries, and games, puzzles, books etc. We offer a telephone mental health service and online resources too. We are supported by Earth’s Lonely Angels who currently prepare one evening meal a week, every Friday. Our social enterprise, Hope Catering, is a major part of the production of hot meals in the evenings, six days a week.

– We are working to identify the needs of other former users of the centre, who weren’t currently homeless, but had somewhere to live, to see if they need food or other services.

In relation to food poverty our foodclub has changed from being a series of pop-up shops to being a home delivery service, with all payments waived, serving approximately 3x as many people as before: we also supply various agencies to pass on to their clients: notably NDAS, C2C and Amicus, reaching women escaping domestic abuse and offenders.

All this has placed a great deal of challenge to our work: we lack funding and we lack food. Although food for the catering to the homeless in hotels is being paid for by central government, our labour is not. All the food we supply through foodclub has to be found, paid for or donated. Donations have collapsed, and there is no sales income. Which is why we appeal, through our Just giving page, for donations: https://www.justgiving.com/campaign/helphope

or for text giving: text ENDHUNGER  to 70450 to donate £5

One of the small benefits from this crisis is that we are working really closely with all of the other foodbanks, working in an alliance of food providers: sharing food, helping each other collect and store. One of the projects we are working on as a group is one where we produce ready meals to feed people in need, the press release with regard to the ready meals service is HERE

Please stay in touch through social media, and support us if you can by donating food, or money. For the former ring us on 01604214300