Homeless people will continue to receive warm meals from the Isle of Wight Soup Kitchen thanks to Tesco donating a free delivery van to the organisation.
The ex-Tesco fleet van, which was previously used for home deliveries, will be transformed into a pop-up kitchen, helping to secure the future of the important food service.
The IOW Pop Up Soup Kitchen regularly collects fresh food that would normally go to waste from Tesco, other supermarkets and local suppliers such as the Garlic Farm and the Tomato Stall. The food collected is used to cook soups and other nutritious meals which are distributed to homeless people on the Island.
The Soup Kitchen was facing an uncertain future following the news that the Newport shopfront from which it operated its ‘pay as you wish’ café, a key source of income for the charity, was being sold by the landlord.
The donation from Tesco has now helped to secure the future of the vital service, which provides 10,000 meals a year.
Trevor Blaney, founder of the IOW soup kitchen, has said:
“We simply can’t believe this. Not only is it wonderful news for the team, it is a great asset to those less fortunate on our island. This has been a lifeline for us, working with Tesco.”
Jon Roberts, store manager at Tesco Ryde, adds:
“We’re so pleased to be able to support such an important charity on the island. We knew the IOW Pop Up Soup Kitchen recently lost its premises, and so the van will help ensure the charity can continue to support homeless people this winter.”
Trevor founded the Isle of Wight Pop Up Soup Kitchen in 2014 after seeing a number of homeless people excluded because of severe addiction or mental health issues, from the night shelter where he had been volunteering. Realising the existing services were not equipped to help some of the most vulnerable homeless people, Trevor would drive to locations where he knew people were sleeping and provide them with a flask of soup, sleeping bags, torches and mobile phones.
The charity is a beneficiary of Tesco’s Community Food Connection scheme, run through the charity FareShare, meaning it regularly collects surplus food from the supermarket’s store in Ryde to help with its work.
