Wembley Stadium opens its kitchens to support Compassion London’s mission to provide thousands of meals every day to key workers and the vulnerable.

Compassion London, the charity established to provide nutritious meals to people in need during the Covid-19 crisis, is moving its emergency response operation into Wembley Stadium connected by EE. With the valued support of the Football Association and Wembley staff who have joined in to assist the initiative, Compassion London are aiming to cook and deliver 20,000 meals per day.

The charity was founded in response to the Covid-19 lockdown to provide meals to NHS staff and other key workers, individuals and families in need, and the most vulnerable in our society. Compassion London is run by a team of volunteer chefs, delivery drivers and support staff working seven days a week. It relies on donations of food and funding from a wide range of partners. In its first six weeks it delivered in excess of 85,000 meals.

Moving to Wembley allows Compassion London to upscale their reach considerably. The help of Wembley’s Executive Head Chef, Harry Lomas, and Delaware North, the stadium’s caterers, is invaluable in working towards that goal.

Leon Aarts, founder of Compassion London, commented: “Our purpose is the principle of no-one to bed hungry. We plan to cook 20,000 free meals each day cooked by chefs and delivered by volunteers. We are so thankful for the support of Wembley Stadium and the individuals who have gone out of their way to help us to help others. Our meals fuel the carers and also go to people who are struggling to eat.”

Harry Lomas MBE, BEM, Head of Culinary, Delaware North, Wembley Stadium, added: “The initiative of using an empty kitchen and bringing food together to feed vulnerable people and the NHS is fantastic. It’s a win win situation. We are people and we are doing our little bit for people.”

Jon Sellins, Operations Director at Wembley Stadium said: “Compassion London is run by a passionate team of volunteers with a simple mission: to help others in this time of crisis. We are very pleased to be able to support them by offering up the facilities and expertise we have available at Wembley Stadium. We hope that this infrastructure will allow them to upscale their response and will mean that their meals reach even more people in need at this difficult time.”

For more information and to support Compassion London please click here.