“We cook for Winter Night Shelter guests”
We first heard about the 999 Club through our church – St Alfege in Greenwich. A group of people had got together to cook dinners for the guests at the winter night shelter. I am retired and wanted to support a charity that helped homeless people, so I joined the cooking teams. It wasn’t long before my husband also signed up to help!
The cooking is done in lots of different ways with lots of different people – not just members of the church. We make enough for about 30 people every night from December to March. That’s almost 3,000 meals! Some people cook at home in small batches, and we bank the food in the freezer, until we have enough for a full house. I cook with a team in the church. Every Monday I go and buy the ingredients in the morning, and then meet the team at 1pm to start cooking. We coordinate menus with other teams so we don’t end up cooking the same thing. I really enjoy working with the team, it’s a great community feeling. We try to be as professional as possible. Some of us have done food and hygiene certificates to make sure we’re doing things the right way.
My favourite thing to cook is Thai chicken curry and sausage and puy lentil casserole. We always do a main and a dessert. Guests always give us good feedback, they especially like spicy food and, perhaps surprisingly, lightly steamed cabbage!
I deliver the meal in the evening, and my husband and I also volunteer at the shelter, so we get to chat to the guests a bit. There is mostly a calm and gentle atmosphere at the centre. Guests sometimes come up to me to give me a hug or say thanks for helping. It’s a comfortable place to be and I’ve always felt well supported by the 999 Club staff. It is great to be part of something that is helping our local community and is also fun to do.