It’s often through adversity that we see true altruism, kindness and humanity in others. In this bizarre time of isolation, social distancing and staying at home, Food4Heroes has been set up and is absolutely a testament to this.
Amanda Guest, who has a catering and restaurant business in Yorkshire, and her brother John Brownhill, a businessman from Northamptonshire, wanted to do something positive for this crisis and set up Food4Heroes on 23rd March 2020. Food4Heroes is already producing 1,500 meals per day in Yorkshire and will begin rolling out across the country in the coming days with local restaurants and catering organisations preparing tasty food in a safe environment. Such is the demand for this service that Food4Heroes is on track to produce 20,000 meals next week across many more hospitals nationwide. Some 400 volunteers are registered to help with the effort at this point and increasing numbers of hospitals are contacting them to provide a service.
A tasty and nutritious meal costs £2 for the caterer to produce. Although nearly £100,000 has been generated, a substantial amount more needs to be raised to ensure its sustainability. Feeding only 1% of NHS staff for the next 8 weeks would total £1.7m; this gives an indication of the scale of the donations required.
Founder of Food4Heroes John Brownhill says, “We’ve been so humbled by the response to our initiative and the fact that a leading British brand like Bremont would want to support us. These bracelets will enable us to provide thousands of meals to our valued NHS workers.”
Bremont Co-Founder Giles English adds, “It’s really heart-warming to see people come together in times like these and initiatives like this are exactly what it’s all about, helping each other. If we at Bremont can help in keeping Food4Heroes going and simultaneously build some more momentum around it then it’s a privilege to do so. We are proud to be supporting this wonderful charity.”
Food4Heroes delivers three key benefits:
- Ensuring our NHS staff eat healthy and nutritious food during this crisis, helping them to remain resilient and so to save more lives.
- Keeping chefs and restaurants trading around the country.
- Helping young people who have had their education cut short to learn business skills and have a sense of purpose.
To provide a structure for larger donations, Food4Heroes has partnered with the charity Northamptonshire Community Foundation (NCF) where 50% of the funds are matched.
On behalf of Food4Heroes, we thank you for your support.
