Local businesses are being urged to support Derby County Community Trust’s free meals programme which is helping feed hundreds of people in need across the city.
The community trust provides free hot meals at Harrison’s Hub every week to those experiencing hardship in Derby.
The scheme has been going since November 2022 and in 2024 demand has been so high that the community meals are being served up all year round for the first time.
The project sees Derby County Football Club chefs prepare hot meals which are sponsored by local businesses, which often send in a team of volunteers to serve them.
The trust is providing around 50 hot meals per week with the aim of targeting as many different groups in the city as possible, including Ukrainian refugees, families struggling with mounting bills, or people having problems with drug and alcohol use.
Pete Collins, the trust’s fundraising and partnerships manager, said: “There is a group of 30 to 35 more vulnerable members of the local community who will attend the meals each week. The rest will be made up of adults who are accessing other services around the city, and may well be homeless. It’s lovely to see them every week.”
Local businesses have been paying to sponsor the meals. One company which has supported several Derby County Community Trust meals is Lubrizol, a science company whose UK Technical Centre is based at Hazelwood, near Duffield.
Claire Hollingshurst, who sits on Lubrizol’s charities and communities committee, was one of the company’s volunteers who turned out to serve a meal of chilli con carne and garlic bread.
She said: “We all really enjoyed coming out to serve one of these meals once again. It’s always good to interact with the local community and chat to the families who came out to eat at Harrison’s Hub.
“Giving back to the community is very important to us at Lubrizol and these hot meals provided by the Derby County Community Trust are a really great initiative we are proud to support.”
Pete said: “We’re very grateful to all the businesses which support our community meals initiative. We do encourage them to send volunteers to roll their sleeves up and help serve them.
“The need for these meals is ever increasing. Derby is a city within 20 per cent of the most deprived areas of the country. There are lots of people who need these warm spaces and hot food that we can provide.
“We’re coming up to winter now and the need is always there. It’s nice that we can provide the support that comes from being connected with the football club and the city council that makes people feel welcome. Lubrizol has worked with us several times on these meals and the ongoing support from a business is vitally important for us, to be able to deliver and serve them.
“We have some meal slots coming up that would still benefit from business support so if anyone can help us we’d ask them to be in touch.”
Lubrizol also supports the DCCT with a STEM programme, offering science, tech, maths and engineering opportunities to Derby school students. Their support includes sponsoring innovative ‘Sphero’ robots which are helping primary teach computer programming through football-themed activities. As well as covering the cost of the robots, Lubrizol also contributes yearly to five workshops in which schools participate.
To support Derby County Community Trust’s meals, please contact Pete Collins on pete.collins@dcct.co.uk
