London Streetfood Bank

I always knew that there were hundreds of homeless and hungry people around the world and when we found a website that told us that we could help, I didn't want to miss the opportunity, so I asked my mother to write to the head of London StreetFood Bank and we immediately got a reply telling us that our help would be appreciated.

I was looking forward to helping all week. We arrived at Pret to see a journalist arguing with the Manager of the shop about coming in to take photos. My mum and I were allowed in, but had to wait till they finished arguing before we could take the sandwiches.

Only when I got to Pret did I realise how much food from shops gets wasted. So many delicious desserts, sumptuous sandwiches and briliant breads get put in the bin when they don't even have the tiniest bit of mould on them and aren't stale in the slightest.


Packing the sandwiches into the suitcase and rucksack that we brought was pretty fun. I worried that I wouldn't be able to have enough space in the bags so I had to pack the sandwiches really carefully in square shapes with one triangle on top of another. I worried about crushing the food, especially the hot wraps. I put them together in the side pockets of the rucksack to keep them warm. 


About five minutes after we got to Charing Cross, we started handing out pastries, salads, desserts and sandwiches. It was really hard calling out the sandwich flavours because most of them were not labelled. When I handed out desserts, everyone was really keen on getting one asking for large ones and sometimes even taking from our suitcase. 


When all the sandwiches were finished, I felt really happy because I knew I'd done a good thing.  I felt really sorry for the homeless people though. Because I knew that there weren't many people handing out sandwiches and the hungry people looked forward to getting the sandwiches all day. I felt bad I couldn't be there every day. And I hoped that there would be more people volunteering to help the homeless and hungry who cannot ever be sure when or where they will get their next meal.


When people mentioned homeless and hungry people I always used to imagine people in Africa or other far-off places like that, who don't have enough porridge or water to keep them alive, but until this week I did not ever think of there being homeless people so near to me here in London. And when people talked about how much food was wasted, I always thought about mouldy apples and three day-old boiled pasta being thrown away by households. But now when people mention food wastage and/ or hunger I will know how real and close to me it is.