Meghan: I was so scared helping in LA soup kitchen when I was 13
SHE now spends her days rubbing shoulders with royalty but Meghan Markle can also claim first-hand knowledge of how the less fortunate live.
The American actress, who is due to marry Prince Harry in May, worked as a teenager at soup kitchens in one of LA’s most impoverished neighbourhoods.
Writing in the book, The Game Changers: Success Secrets from 40 Women at the Top, the 36-yearold said: ‘I started working at a soup kitchen in Skid Row of Los Angeles when I was 13 years old, and the first day I felt really scared. I was young, and it was rough and raw down there, and though I was with a great volunteer group, I just felt overwhelmed. I remember one of my mentors told me that “life is about putting others’ needs above your own fears”. That has always stayed with me.’
Approximately 20,000 people live in downtown LA’s notorious Skid Row district, which is infamous for high levels of homelessness and crime. Around 2,000 homeless have to share just nine toilets, according to a report last year.
The former Suits star, who spent Christmas with the Royal Family at Sandringham, said her moments of uneasiness did not dissuade her from volunteering.
She wrote: ‘Yes, make sure you are safe and never ever put yourself in a compromising situation, but once that is checked off the list, I think it’s really important for us to remember that someone needs us, and that your act of giving/helping/doing can truly become an act of grace once you get out of your head’. Miss Markle, who grew up in LA, was featured in the success manual published last January, which includes advice on how to be a ‘fearless girl boss’ from the likes of actress Gwyneth Paltrow and supermodel Elle Macpherson.