Feeding Londoners During the Pandemic

From March 2020, when the UK went into lockdown, Leon realised that people in London would be going hungry. The economy was failing and people were being laid off; the number of homeless people on the streets was starting to rise.

Leon reasoned that, with people in the hospitality industry being furloughed (or worse, losing their jobs) there would be many chefs at home, as well as many professional kitchens lying empty. He realised that this combination of chefs with time and empty kitchens would be the perfect recipe for cooking thousands of meals.

With the experience of Calais Kitchens under his belt, Leon knew that possibilities were infinite. He put a shout out on Facebook, saying ‘London’s going to be hungry, we’re going to cook thousands of meals a day, who’s going to help and who has a kitchen?’.

All in all, with a couple more relocations along the way, the team cooked 650K meals in 14 months. With Compassion then joined forces with The Felix Project. The latter built a large purpose-built kitchen in East London which could produce over 5,000 meals every day for those in need.

What started as a small group of committed individuals turned into a lasting project. The Felix Project is London's biggest food surplus charity and supported With Compassion from the beginning. From May 2021 until March 2023, Leon worked as the Head of Felix’s Kitchen, part of the Felix Project “on a mission to feed London with imperfectly perfect surplus food”.

In September 2022, Leon’s work was recognised when he received BBC Radio London's Make a Difference Award in The Fundraiser Category.

[WATCH video] In Leon’s words: why he set up With Compassion in this short video:

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