Yahoo Finance Meghan phone call to Hubb community kitchen in west London praises ‘incredible’ work
The Duchess of Sussex has praised the “incredible” achievements of the women who created the Hubb community kitchen in west London following the Grenfell fire disaster.
In a phone call from her California home on Wednesday, Meghan chatted to women gathered for a celebratory lunch at the Al-Manaar centre in north Kensington, not far from the tower.
Meghan wrote the foreword for the Hubb’s Together cookbook, which was published to raise funds for a renovation of the kitchen that provided meals for bereaved and homeless local people after the June 2017 tragedy, which claimed 72 lives.
In her call, she said: “We founded Hubb together and I think what I’m most proud of is what you’ve all been able to do, not just what we created to meet an immediate need right after the fire.
“If you go back to where it all began you just didn’t have a place to cook and people forget that’s what it came down to, needing the resources to do what you do so well — as we all know because we can taste it. But also to do it together and how...the cookbook ended up having the impact we wanted because it raised enough to get you all the help in the kitchen you needed.”
The duchess, who has made a series of visits to the community kitchen, added: “But beyond that, what you turned it into as a group and individually is incredible, you’ve just continued to take care of everyone in the community. If you think how many thousands of people have been affected by your recipes and by your love and what you’ve done to take care of frontline workers and families during Covid and children and after school groups and women in hospital and new mums...”
The luncheon was to mark the achievements of the women who have launched their own projects since the creation of the cookbook.
The women continue to cook and provide for their community via varied projects and initiatives to benefit the homeless, refugees, women fleeing violence, families in need, new mothers, isolated and elderly women, frontline health workers and rehabilitated ex-offenders.
The kitchen will remain open to the women for charitable purposes as they move forward with their own projects.
One of the Hubb volunteers, Chérine Mallah, told the Standard: “It was lovely to have our work celebrated by Meghan. We were really happy to hear from the duchess. It was just incredible. It really encourages us to continue in what we have been doing and makes us feel quite proud of the work we have done and the projects we have been running.
“It is quite impressive really to have the support from Meghan. For us, it is just our normal lives. It is massive for us. The next days of our lives are just the same but we know that someone as famous as Meghan is backing us. It is really lovely.”
Another volunteer Oxana Sinitsyna added: “To hear what Meghan says about Hubb Kitchen, it makes us feel like we are doing the right thing.”
The Hubb has been supported by The Felix Project, the Standard’s charity partner.
Since 2019 the food redistribution charity has made deliveries to provide tens of thousands of meals.
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