‘I walked an hour and a half to get this lunch’ – the stories behind our Help The Hungry Appeal

Help The Hungry: We spoke to some of the people who receive meals at a centre that used to serve around 75 people per day – it now helps around 300

The first person arrived more than two hours before the doors opened. Another had travelled for an hour and a half. When I arrived, the socially-distanced queue of people snaked around the street.

Together, the people outside the free meal service in Earl’s Court illustrate the stark impact the coronavirus crisis is having on those who were already living in difficult circumstances.

It also shows why every meal provided by our Help The Hungry campaign is essential.

They had come to the Refettorio Felix, which for the past three years has provided hot meals and mental health services to those in need. Before the virus, the centre used to feed between 75 to 80 people each day. This month, it will provide meals for more than 300 a day.

When I visited, a number of the people there had never imagined before Covid-19 that they would ever have to rely on such a service.

Paul told me how he had worked for decades in construction. Two weeks ago, his boss closed down the development where he was working. He could no longer afford the rent on his property, and found himself homeless.

Now Paul worries how long it may be until he can earn a living once again. And sofa surfing is no longer an option. “I have called my boss but he says he does not know,” the 50-year-old explained. “So I stay where I can stay.”

“There are fewer food vans,” 57-year-old Marc told me, as we presented him with a hot meal. “You used to be able to go to Charing Cross or Holborn. “Now you need to have your ear to the ground. There was nowhere closer I could get food that I knew of. It’s taken me an hour and a half to get here.”

For 66-year-old Mukesh Vira, coronavirus means the support system on which he relies has been curtailed. Having been homeless for 37 years, he is a recovering alcoholic with mental health problems.

Doctors and councillors previously helped him cope and live in his own council-provided flat. Now he can see none of them in person.

“AA meetings are closed. Doors are closed. I have nobody so all the professional people – the doctors, the psychiatrists, the appointments – they are like my friends. I miss them,” he said. “I am just coping. Because of this lockdown you spend so much time indoors… It can be difficult.”

Previously those visiting Refettorio Felix would receive a three-course meal at tables in the centre. People sat together and socialised as they ate. Today, tape marks along the road ensure that everyone who is lining up to receive their daily meal stands two metres apart.

On the day I visited, every single person told me that they would not be able to survive without the food they receive here.

“We are all clapping for the NHS but these people also deserve a clap,” Jen, a long-term visitor to the centre, told me of its volunteers.

As well as the meals for those queueing up each lunchtime, Refettorio Felix is now also cooking and delivering more than 100 meals a day to local NHS workers, and a further 100 to Age UK to distribute to the elderly who are unable to leave their homes.

In total, some 5,000 courses are now produced by the centre each week, a ten-fold increase since the beginning of the crisis. They come from food supplied by our campaign partner, The Felix Project, and supported by money donated by you, our readers.

“There are so many more people who have been dragged into need for one reason or another,” the centre’s CEO Ali Kingsley explained to me regarding the impact of Covid-19.

“The appeal has been massively important. We couldn’t have done it without it. I want to thank those who have donated so much. You literally enable us to do our work.”

Evgeny Lebedev is a shareholder of The Independent.

Help The Hungry is a campaign by The Independent and The Evening Standard in London to facilitate donations, volunteers and supplies to food banks and charities at a time of crisis. You can read more about the appeal here.