After a bit of confusion on the right location, I managed to track down the location of Voices of Hope, who are based at the Kings Gate church in Kingston.

Voices of Hope are working closely with Kingston Council and Kingston Voluntary Action, with responsibility as a central food distribution point for the whole of Kingston borough, with the aim of providing support to the most vulnerable in our community including the homeless, the isolated and those whose income is inadequate to meet their daily needs. Their work includes:

• preparing thousands of hot meals for those unable to do so (10,000 to date!)
• preparing packages of essential foodstuffs and basic aid for those who most need them
• providing a delivery service to as many of the 18,000 people aged 70+ in Kingston as possible

The task involved providing the legwork to replace the faulty lift, carrying donated food packages up to the third floor of the building. This started with boxes of satsumas, which had been sorted to remove the rotten ones. Then onto boxes of tinned food and jams, and the odd box of aubergines, melons and onions. One of the foods in most plentiful supply was grapes, of which there was a whole tower of boxes. We had almost managed to get all of them up to the third floor before being told they actually needed to come down one floor... but no sour grapes, we set to and before long they were all in the right place.

Recognising the unprecedented nature of the public health crisis that we are all in, VOH would be grateful for any additional assistance from individuals, companies and organisations by way of financial support to enable them to carry out our task effectively and reach as many in need of help as possible. Look out for more missions of this kind, every Monday around 11-1 they need help with sorting and moving the food deliveries.