30 October 2023
Black History Month: Rehoboth Community Outreach Club
“Our project has made a massive impact over the last eight years,” says Paula Litchmore, Founder and Chair Person at Rehoboth Community Outreach Club. We ensure people struggling with food insecurities, period poverty and isolation get the help and support they need through our services.”
Rehoboth Community Outreach Club, situated in Sydenham in south east London, provides hot meals and food parcels three times a week for children and families, elderly and vulnerable people across Lewisham, Croydon and Bromley.
“We also deliver chilled food items donated from supermarkets, seven days per week, to eight homeless hostels and one mother and baby accommodation for those fleeing domestic violence,” Paula continues. “We currently support over 500 individuals weekly living in local communities and homeless hostels with food provisions and more.
“We’ve learnt so much over the years as we meet new people each day. We ensure that our volunteers are trained and know how to treat those accessing our services, and those we deal with in different areas of our work, with respect and dignity.
“We ensure that those who access our lunch club and food bank services weekly feel welcome, appreciated and valued. We have grown and adapted in many ways.
“We are now working with other local charities and organisations to host annual family days and fun days, back-to-school uniform give-aways to support families struggling to get their kids back to school, and tackling period poverty amongst young females in local communities.
“We also work with other organisations that help us to support people suffering from mental health issues with wellbeing counselling. Our organisations have been running for over eight years and we have been a registered charity for six years.
“We also received an award from the Lewisham Mayor for our contribution in the local communities in 2021 and 2022.”
The group receives food from FareShare, via The Felix Project, as well as collections from Nando’s and KFC via the FareShare Go programme.
“The food rescued by FareShare from the various partnerships gets redistributed by our organisation and others to people in local communities with food insecurity issues,” Paula says.
“We have three signature meals at our soup kitchen; curry chicken, jerk chicken and BBQ chicken served with rice and peas (kidney beans), fresh salad, or steamed vegetables.”
This Black History Month, the team at Rehoboth Community Outreach Club will bring people together to share specially prepared foods.
“We will celebrating Black History Month like we do each year,” Paula explains. “We will prepare various dishes from the Caribbean, Asian, African and other countries. Our volunteers cook their traditional meals, share recipes and culture with the people in the local communities.”
