5 July Event Update

4 July 2020 – DAY 94 | |
People served | 357 |
London Bridge/Waterloo | 93 |
Victoria | 34 |
Kings Cross | 61 |
Embankment/Soho | 159 |
Hostel | 10 |
TOTAL SERVED TO DATE | 32,325 |
As we reached the end of our food distribution we also crossed 32,000 homeless friends served. What we have achieved together is quite hard to comprehend because of the sheer scale of it. If you lined up that number of people in a queue with social distancing is would stretch for 74 kilometres / 46 miles. That would have been our achievement had we been a Trafalgar Square food van – but we are not.
Add to the scale of what we have delivered the depth of our delivery. The thousands upon thousands of conversations and actions of going the extra mile because we got to know the person behind the tired and hungry eyes. Hash dropped off supplies from the stock room today and we had a quick chat. He said our homeless friends were telling him “What makes you different from other organisations is you don’t look down on us, you treat us at the same level”. It is wonderful to hear our founding spirit has lived through out this initiative.
To remind you UOS was founded on the principle that humanity is one large family. We are all connected, regardless of nationality, race, religion, education, age, gender, sexuality or any other label.
I don’t have the words to describe the gratitude we have for the partnership with Punjab, Amrit and his Kings. A truly magical relationship developed and Punjab became the home of our operation. One of our social media posts described Amrit as the father of UOS and it wonderful to think about all those special moments shared. I have no idea what our operation would have looked like without Punjab but I am pretty sure it could never be as special. This was a match made in heaven. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts. May our special friendship last for a lifetime.
On that note of special friendships, we still have more work to do on the streets in July and our first day carrying socks instead of wraps has gone really well. It is very worrying though what the Waterloo team is experiencing. Numbers have gone up significantly and we know some of the “new faces” used to be in the Travelodge down Waterloo Road.
Yesterday we started a GoFundMe campaign to replace Paisley, Tom and Tatjana’s bikes which had been stolen in Neal Street. 24 hours and a bit later and we have reached the target of £1080. I am pleased to say most of the donations came from UOS family members.
Ending with a ray of sunshine from the Kings Cross team last night. They bumped into street friends Savannah and Brian (not him) who after 18 years as a couple will tie the knot after lock down.

Thank you all for your incredible efforts to get us here, now lets keep it going until end of July for our friends out there.
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