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A volunteer at Our Lady’s church hall |
Crunch time as the soup kitchen queues lengthen
Church lunch club calls on firms to help feed growing numbers of hungry
THE queue for the soup kitchen now stretches out on to Falkland Road, in Kentish Town, and on Sundays church workers struggle to make the food go far enough.
Staff and volunteers at Our Lady Help of Christians are not sure exactly why, but since the credit crunch began to bite the “regulars” at the daily lunch club have been joined by an increasing number of the hungry and the lonely.
Last year there were 12,282 guests at the centre between January and December. This year, that figure was passed in August.
“Is it economic conditions? We don’t know. But it is stretching our resources,” said the church’s welfare co-ordinator, Michael Fogarty, on Monday. Every day, the church hall is open to all who want sandwiches, a cup of tea and companionship, while each Sunday volunteers serve a traditional roast lunch.
Mr Fogarty has painstakingly charted the numbers of people attending the kitchen, which began operating in 1992. His coloured graphs show a dramatic increase, with nearly twice as many diners coming this August as attended last year.
“There will always be a welcome for everybody,” Mr Fogarty said. “But there are more than 100 coming in on a Sunday. There is only so far the food can go. We would really like to see more involvement from local businesses on top of the ones that already help.”
Looking at the stark figures, parish priest Father Tom Forde said: “There is pressure on a lot of people at the moment. A lot of them are in arrears. It is a very dicey position to be in.”
Most striking is the change in the type of person coming to the kitchen. While the group has always been predominantly male, the age of the clientele is changing. There are the “regulars”, often Irish men in their 60s who have been coming for years. But at Monday’s lunchtime sitting, there were also a number of men in their 20s and 30s, lean men in work clothes who sit apart.
“They are younger, and many are from eastern European countries,” said the church’s welfare chairwoman, Margaret Harvey. “They probably came over with gangmasters who told them all was rosy here but have found that there is no work. They have made connections here and have not gone home. They are a new group for us.”
Sandwiches will continue to be handed out at Our Lady’s Hall, though organisers are eager for additions to the current group of 82 volunteers and for donations, especially from food companies.
If jobs keep shrinking and the queue keeps growing, they will need both. |
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