Image of Juliet Chowdhry under our dazzling Christmas lights.
As we get closer to December 25th the date on which Christians choose to celebrate the birth of Christ, we have been fortunate to have secured a few more partnerships that are improving our work with the homeless.
In the image above you can see that in collaboration with Wattani Box a local Afghan restaurant opposite Clementswood Community Centre, we have been able to install Christmas lights that bring some cheer to the local community. Not least our own homeless visitors who have never had anything like it at the places that they collect food from. We are planning to give a Christmas meal of turkey with all the trimmings again this year but need your help with donations to do this. If we raise enough funds we will also add some small gifts such as gloves and scarves. We are constantly seeking gifts of unwanted clothes especially coats and other cold weather items.
You can donate financially to our Meals for the Homeless project (here) or communicate with us regarding any physical donations by calling 020 8500 1192 or by emailing admin@britishasianchristians.org.
Working with the local VHP Hindu Temple some of our Saturday meals now come from Tabla Restaurant. This has been pretty amazing as they serve 25 full meals that includes a tray with rice, two curries, yoghurt dip, salad and A chapatti. A truly amazing and filling meal that has been the talk of the town amongst the homeless and has increased the numbers who are coming on Saturdays.
25 large trays of ready made hot food are delivered to us in time for distribution every second Saturday. Tabla is one of the most prestigious restaurants in Ilford, so this is a real treat for our regular homeless visitors.
Trays of the food make a very welcoming environment to our hungry guests. We also buy them drinks and share wonderful food gifts from Greggs in Ilford, which mean they can save them for the morning after or eat a second meal later in the day. Meals are also shared with local families struggling under the current difficult economic climate.
Greggs have been regular givers of food for the last few months but the amount of food provided has definitely increased over the last few weeks. Which has been a real benefit for local homeless people.
We have also recently partnered with Event Cycle a charity that works with event organisers and retrieves furniture and goods that help local charities with their work. We have previously collected furniture for our homeless visitors who have been put into temporary units at the Malachi Project, which has transformed Site cabins into individual living units. Recently, Charity Comms a group that help charities with communications, organised an event and were donating T shirts and cloth bags left over. We hurriedly secured these for our group as we are constantly being asked to provide bags for food to be taken away from our centre. It makes a change from reusing plastic bags and means we will always have a supply as we collected 200. These cloth bags are reusable and I am sure the homeless visitors will use them for many other purposes. Moreover, the bags are better for the environment and we can now say we are doing are small part to prevent further plastic waste.
Please read this evaluation of our first years services at the Meals for the Homeless project (click here).
This man was given three cloth bags and we hope next time he will no longer be using plastic bags.
We continue to give food parcels to the Malachi Project in Ilford serving a further 50 homeless people every Saturday.
Please read this evaluation of our first years services at the Meals for the Homeless project (click here).
