Volunteers at a homeless charity say they have been touched by seeing so many people at a soup kitchen in Bolton.
Sophia Hashmi is a dentist from Bolton who started volunteering with Homeless Aid UK every Tuesday in Le Mans Crescent to give back to the community.
The charity runs a soup kitchen five days a week to provide struggling families in Bolton with food and water.
Sophia said: “I had been wanting to give something back to the community for a long time, you get so much out of it.
“I was lucky with the background I am from, and I was educated in, and it makes you realise that other people don’t have the same opportunities that we have.
“It has opened my eyes up to the hardships in Bolton.”
Sophia is fasting at the same time and said she was happy to be doing it regardless as well as in Ramadan.
In Ramadan, Muslims are encouraged to think if those without food and drink by keeping away form it themselves.
Sophia recalls seeing a young girl come to the soup kitchen one night and said, “It made a couple of us cry, at seeing such a young person need help."
Taylor Robinson volunteered five years ago and said it was ‘completely different’ when she started, with 25 people maximum needing help, but since then the numbers have reached close to 100 every day.
She said: “You just can’t judge anybody, you need to speak to everyone and understand their stories.
“It makes you realise they are a person and it’s absolutely heart-breaking to hear some of the stories.”
Among the group is also a specialist nurse, Amy Lyons, who works to give the individuals at the soup kitchen, a health check before they leave.
She said: “We work in the community to help homeless people address their health needs.
“We do a lot of outreach work, but they aren’t always in so coming here we can catch up with people we haven’t seen in a while."
One man going to the soup kitchen said: “It wasn’t always like this, I wasn’t always struggling.
“But it happened to me, and it can happen to anyone.
“What these people do is amazing, it’s absolutely brilliant how they help us, we’re really grateful.”
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel