From hundreds of portions of food to hundreds of Christmas presents, you could say that our Christmas period was almost as busy as Santa’s at Serve the City!
You may remember seeing our Christmas present appeal going out on social media in December for the children in the various centres that we support. We are very happy to say that this project was a roaring success thanks to the support of many individuals and a few organisations who helped to provide Christmas presents for over 250 children in 6 centres!
The present distributions were met with enormous smiles and wide, surprised eyes as the presents all came rolling in. There were happy tears shed by many of the children (and possibly a couple of volunteers along the way too)! Budding artists received some art supplies to help them practise their skills for the future. A few eager sporty children‘s gifts also included a football so look out team Belgium, you‘ve got some new recruits coming your way!
Right after the present distributions, the festive cooking commenced. In just 3 days, between 23rd and 25th December, in partnership with Community Kitchen, Serve the City cooked and distributed 2500 meals!
23rd December was a very busy day for Serve the City. We coordinated 1000 meals being cooked and delivered to the 1000 residents at Palais des Droits. This building has in recent months become a roof over the head for asylum seekers who are still waiting on a place in an official government centre. As everyone was gearing up for Christmas, we wanted to remind the residents at Palais that they are deserving of a home-cooked meal made especially for them, which meant that 1000 meals needed to be cooked. To make this happen 11 organisations came together and a Michelin-star chef even kindly sent her recipe to be able to make a gourmet meal for the residents.
The very next day, the office kitchen was back up and running to make around 500 Christmas eve meals. This was entirely managed by 2 families who wanted to do something special at Christmas. Following this, on Christmas Day, the kitchen was put to good use again to make another 450 meals. Thank you to all the volunteers who helped make this possible. You helped to bring some comfort to those who needed it most.
Check out articles on the meals here:
23 December 2022 – BX1 interview “1000 repas grastronomiques distribués aux demandeurs d’asile”https://servethecityspain.sharepoint.com/sites/Brussels/Shared%20Documents/Communication/Press/2022-12-23-
24 December 2022 – Le Soir “Hommage aux benevoles inconnus” https://www.lesoir.be/art/d-20221223-3ZU9GE?referer=%2Farchive
