Salaam Shalom Kitchen – the only joint Muslim and Jewish community kitchen in the UK is celebrating six years of reducing food poverty and social isolation in the city’s most vulnerable people, by providing fresh, healthy meals every week.
Cooking up around 180 hot vegetarian meals every Wednesday, need for the Salaam Shalom Kitchen has more than tripled since before the start of lockdown as more and more people are in search of a safe place to find support.
Volunteers, dinner guests and those in the community came together to celebrate the six year milestone, with a special event at the Nottingham Liberal Synagogue.
Karen Worth, co-chair and trustee Salaam Shalom Kitchen, said: “We are a joint small local Jewish and Muslim run charity, working to break down perceived barriers between people and creating cohesion. We have a large number of varied volunteers, who help prepare and cook food in the Nottingham Liberal Synagogue and then hand it out outside the Bridge Centre.
“Every Wednesday, we are outside The Bridge centre, whatever the weather, giving out a hot meal, supermarket donations and a friendly hello to anyone who needs this. I’m so proud of what we’ve achieved to date and this anniversary feels extra important because of the hard times we’ve all faced this last year. Thank you so much to our donors, volunteers and supporters, we couldn’t do the important work we do without you.”
The kitchen, which is associated with Nottingham charity and community project Himmah, recently received half of a £10,000 donation from The Duchess of Sussex’s The Royal Foundation, to continue its working in transforming lives through the power of cooking and food.
The kitchen relies of food and fund donations as well as the help of more than 20 volunteers every week to survive.
Karen added: “We’re always looking for more volunteers to help us cook, bag up groceries, collect supermarket surplus food and hand out hot meals. Now more than ever we need support as sadly food poverty is a growing issue, made only worse by the pandemic.”
To find out more, visit https://salaamshalomkitchen.co.uk/
