Sally Army provides lunches in lockdown
A SCHEME to feed some of the borough’s most vulnerable residents has made sure its following lockdown restrictions.
In December 2020, the Salvation Army, with a helping hand from Churches Together inWokingham, is providing a hot lunch every day through until the end of March.
Throughout the pandemic, it has already been providing takeawaymeals three times aweek, but Captain Jan Howlin said newrestrictions inspired the team to do more.
“Because of the lockdown, we felt that it wasn’t fair to bring peoplewhowere receiving meals out to us – we want as many people to stay home as possible,” she said.
“Sowe decided to shift whatwewere doing into a delivery service.
“Overallwe’ve tried to adapt to the pandemic as much as possible, which seems to beworking.”
Captain Howlin said that by offering a delivery service, there has been an uptake in the number of people being referred formeals.
“It’s been quite rewarding actually, nowthat the scheme isn’t dependent on people being able to get to us,” she said.
The captain said the programmewas launched to aid people during thewinter months.
“Last year, we did a night shelterwith Churches Together inWokingham and seven churches took part overall,” she explained.
“This year, we knew wewouldn’t be able to do that, but as a partnership
we still felt thatwewanted to do something.”
Captain Howlin added that a lot of their service users have been housed in temporary accommodation, but have limited access to cooking facilities.
“We can help them out by giving them at least one decent hot meal every day,” she added.
And she said the community support for the initiative has been “amazing”.
“We’ve had so much support thatwe’ve even had to put food donations on hold,” the captain said.
“Our freezers are rammed with food.”
The Salvation Army is also busyworkingwith Holme Grange School to distribute hot meals on the weekends, too.
“They’re cooking meals for us in their kitchens on a Friday night, and that’s been a great collaboration,” Captain Howlin added.
Formore details, search Facebook forWokingham Salvation Army or send Captain Howlin an email: jan.howlin@salvationarmy. org.uk