Lynne Featherstone

Go to a soup kitchen in Muswell Hill at the Dukes Avenue Baptist Church to support and celebrate National Volunteers Week. John Grant, who is also the Church Warden, started this kitchen many years ago. Now it has grown to a five nights a week mainstay for those who really have nowhere else to go and nothing to eat. Supported by a team of around 50 or more volunteers, most of whom come through Church channels – and several churches in the area are involved – John and his team see that somewhere between 30 and 50 people have food to eat. This is such wonderful work – and the volunteers, most of whom are really young – really seem to enjoy and value the work they do. Congratulations to all who give their time and effort to supporting the soup kitchen!

Ironically enough I had had a destitute man come to Central Lobby in Parliament to see me and I was green carded (which means that a note was sent to me – sitting in Chamber – on a green card that a constituent was here to see me). I won’t go in to personal details – but he was literally starving. Sadly – he was also stateless – and our system does not have a catch all for people in such a predicament. If you have status – then you are eligible for social services support etc – but stateless – virtually nothing is available to you.