The Felix Project kitchen has created over 5,000 meals in just one day for the first time ever, thanks to an incredible volunteer effort.
Felix’s Kitchen was first opened in July 2021 and produces around 3,500 meals every day. Chefs take food from the warehouse next door, they create nutritious and tasty cooked meals that are delivered to projects across London. They feed families in need, the elderly and isolated, those affected by homelessness, refugees and people who live without the money or facilities to cook meals at home.
As part of a The Big Help Out celebrations and to demonstrate the power of volunteering The Felix Project set itself the challenge to make 5,000 meals in one day, something the kitchen, with support from Morgan Stanley, has been working on for some time.
The challenge, which was helped along by TV Presenter Anneka Rice and aired live on BBC Breakfast involved ensuring we had the maximum number of volunteers both on the day and the night before.
Nick Kerle, Kitchen Manager at The Felix Project explains more: “We need 50 volunteers every day to meet our targets, 20 for the morning and afternoon shifts and then 10 in the evening. At the moment we don’t always have enough regular volunteers especially in the evening. Signing up to come in repeatedly will help us reach this target daily. – it was a huge effort, but we pulled it off and I am excited to try and do it again.”
In the end the team made 5,703 meals, smashing the previous record of 4,778, which had been set in February 2022.
Anneka Rice, who is backing The Big Help Out added “What an incredible accomplishment and it just goes to show the power of volunteering and how when everyone pulls together and gives it their all, so much can be achieved. I was so thrilled to be part of the day and do my small bit in helping them. I just hope more volunteers now sign up and help ensure they can meet this number every day and feed so many more people.”
As part of The Big Help Out The Felix Project also took part in a cooking challenge against FareShare, City Harvest and London Community Kitchen. A team of staff cooked a dish out of surplus food and a panel of volunteers, one from each organisation judge and celebrity chef Jack Monroe judges which one was best.
While The Felix Project missed out on the prize, which was awarded to City Harvest, the event was a fantastic celebration of the volunteers, who give their time so generously. Last year 8,599 volunteers gave 144,603 precious hours to fight food waste and hunger, but more are urgently needed. Demand for our support is at record levels, The Felix Project already supplies around 1,000 community organisation and schools across London and there are more than 600 new organisations on the waiting list, a third of them are schools.
The Felix Project relies on volunteers and desperately needs more to join the fight against food waste, there are many roles people can do – to find out more visit our volunteer pages.
Published: 04 05 2023
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