Manchester Homeless Charity Feeding The Hungry

Nothing less than 100% from HNCO for NW’s homeless and hungry

North West charity breaks personal record with more than 100 people at Piccadilly Gardens homeless feed.

HNCO charity first teamed up with Organic Soul during Ramadan to lend a hand with its nightly Iftar feeds in Manchester during the Holy Month. Following the success of the 30-Day Ramadan Homeless Feed, volunteers from HNCO pledged to regularly help out with the Piccadilly Gardens Friday night event and set up their own weekly Burnley session every Wednesday in the Lancashire town’s Thompson Centre car park.

The most recent Manchester feed was a milestone for HNCO as the team of five volunteers – equipped with two large pots of hot, home-cooked food cooked by two local ladies, tea and water – fed over 100 service users in one night, alongside their friends from Organic Soul.

Gulshan Rehman, one of HNCO’s organisers, commented: “We were expecting around 70 people but more than 100 men and women came to our stall, and we were so happy they did. Homelessness is an epidemic in the UK, and anyone who has been to Manchester in the last few years will have noticed the increase in rough sleepers on our streets. It is a sad fact that so many people need our help, but we will be there to feed them for as long as they need us, thanks to the kindness of our volunteers and the generosity of our supporters who donate their money and time.”

A chance encounter with the Organic Soul team led to HNCO’s first homeless feed at the end of May. Organic Soul itself has ‘officially’ been for around seven years, although its organisers have been providing food and amenities to Manchester’s homeless and hungry for closer to ten years, when they were helping with another organisation. On a weekly basis, the self-funded outfit can spend up to £90 on a Friday buying ingredients to make a huge pot of hot food, which they cook themselves then take to the city centre.

Initially, the HNCO team had prepared to support Organic Soul on an ad hoc basis but quickly realised that the amount of homeless and hungry people in the North West merited a much larger commitment, and on a regular basis. As such, HNCO now helps at the Piccadilly Gardens feed once a fortnight and hosts its own Wednesday night event in Burnley, which includes a hot meal, snacks, hot and cold drinks, and hygiene packs, plus a barber who will cut and trim hair and beards for service users.