Free food parcels for families

Families in the community of Catford, Greater London who are struggling to make ends meet during the coronavirus outbreak have been offered a helping hand by their local independent convenience store.

Nisa partner Kaual Patel, who runs Torridon Convenience, stepped in to offer support after a local primary school made a request for a donation towards food parcels.

The store owners, who are keen supporters of a number of neighbouring schools, was asked to contribute to the project that would help families feed their children whilst they are not in school.

But Kaual went a step further and provided enough goods to feed 25 families of the children at Torridon Primary School.

He then went on to donate a further 40 food parcels to Sandhurst Junior School, the school he’d attended as a child 30 years ago.

Kaual said: “After Torridon School asked for a donation I assumed that if families were struggling there, then more would be struggling at other schools and so I approached Sandhurst School to offer some help.”

Kaual created food parcels comprising tinned vegetables, baked beans, pasta and long-life breads which he delivered to the schools for them to distribute.

He said: “We are fortunate; we are still in work and are in a position whereby we can offer some help to those affected by Covid-19 and so we wanted to help our local community.”
The retailer, whose family has run Torridon Stores for almost 40 years, is now planning a second wave of donations which he hopes will help even more families in the neighbourhood.

“The teachers from the schools we’ve helped keep popping into the shop and shouting ‘thank you’ to us – it means a lot to know we have helped, and we want to do more.”