Soup Kitchen Marks Silver Anniversary

Soup is being served in the Royal Square as the Shelter Trust fundraisers celebrates 25 years, with plenty of new flavours on offer.

The annual lunchtime event has raised £220,000 since it first began in 1999.

Team Leader Richard Robins has been part of the initiative for 24 of the 25 years and says back at the kitchen's launch, there were only five soups and a couple of stalls.

"It's brilliant that the people of Jersey really come together to help the Shelter Trust.

We sleep over a hundred people every night, we give them four meals a day and if we weren't there, who knows how many people would be sleeping on the streets in Jersey?

I think the public of Jersey realises this, and therefore they are there for us to support us and help us, and this kitchen is an event where they can do that."

Dr Karen Kyd, Jersey's Lieutenant Governor's wife, and Princess Adelheid of Liechtenstein, NED of LGT Wealth Management's Governing Board, will open the event at 10:30 am in the Royal Square.

For £3, hungry lunch-goers can enjoy another borscht made by the Ukranian community, Government House's roasted red pepper and tomato soup and the Shelter Trust's curried goat, rice and pea soup.

Other flavours include Lancashire hotpot broth with red-picked cabbage, Colmar's French onion soup and The Mooring's North African harira with Moroccan tomatoes, chickpeas and lentils.

A local primary school will also be carolling, helping to make the silver anniversary as memorable as possible.

In recent years, islanders have raised around £20,000 for the homelessness charity at each soup kitchen.

Richard Robins says they have seen a gradual increase in people reaching for help, and he does not think homelessness will be going away.

This year, the charity has given more than 40,000 nights of accommodation and 10,000 meals to people in need.

"There have been more people in financial difficulty recently.

Our funding is partly from the States of Jersey, but a big proportion of it we have to raise ourselves.

Soup Kitchen's revenue of around £20,000 a year is very helpful towards our funding."

The Shelter Trust has a maximum of 130 beds and, in 2023, has housed more than 400 individual islanders, provided help and support to more than 600 and distributed more than 1500 food parcels.