Feeding street homeless in Manchester (Manchester Evening News)
Each year we celebrate Next Meal Saturday, an opportunity to raise awareness of the plight of street homelessness. Over the years we’ve sent thousands of Next Meal leaflets and cards to participating centres and public locations, and we’ve visited cities and towns across the UK to distribute Next Meal cards to those in need.
In 2020, we lit up Exeter Cathedral with a giant Next Meal display.
Next Meal display at Exeter Cathedral
Since then, many aspects of street homelessness have changed but the need for Next Meal continues, with the nextmeal.co.uk website at the centre of our response.
With around 300 centres on our database, we offer a unique service for those looking for their next meal, for a friendly face or support to help them deal with the new challenges of homelessness or sustaining tenancy.
The Next Meal team will be in central London on Saturday, and we know that centres up and down the UK will be doing their bit to help spread the word – and, of course, Next Meal cards.
Next Meal Saturday has always been an important date in the Next Meal calendar, and this year is no different. It’s an opportunity to get our message – to the street homeless and the wider public.
Every card that is handed to someone in difficulty, and every visit to our website, has the potential to save someone’s life.
Thank you to all of the centres who have agreed to help this year.
Each year we celebrate Next Meal Saturday to raise awareness of the plight of street homelessness and how nextmeal.co.uk can make a difference by directing people to the nearest place for food and support
Last year we marked the day in Exeter – where the city’s cathedral was lit up with Next Meal’s logo and message.
Next Meal Saturday 2020: Exeter Cathedral
This year, in the midst of a global pandemic, we are taking Next Meal Saturday online, with a special event on zoom replacing the usual events across the country.
So much has changed over the last 12 months, but the work we all do to help the homeless, hungry and vulnerable continues. We want to take a moment to share some of the amazing initiatives that our friends across the world have put in place to overcome the unique challenges of Covid.
We’d love you to join us on Thursday, January 28 as we link up centres in the UK with New York, Sydney, Los Angeles, Paris and more to share our experiences of the last year.
If you’d like to take part, or just listen in, please email Martin Stone at martin.stone@nextmeal.co.uk and we’ll send you details.
Helping the homeless around the world
Here are just some of the wonderful examples we’ve heard about in recent months:
If you’d like to see some other initiatives, feel free to browse these two presentations:
After years of hard work, countless hours of volunteer effort and many lives being changed, Next Meal has officially been launched as a charity.
The official launch was hosted at the House of Commons this month, an event that was attended by politicians, government officials, and volunteers.
It marks great progress for Next Meal since we first began in 2017.
Founder Martin Stone said he was extremely proud of how much Next Meal had grown in such a short time.
Martin’s pride was shared by several prominent officials at the launch, who acknowledged the great success of Next Meal and applauded the work being done.
NHS regional director for London Sir David Sloman said Next Meal did more than just help provide people with food.
“It’s not just about giving people a hot nutritious meal, it’s about bringing people together, to share stories, talk to each other and get some warmth in their lives.
“Something we take for granted, but which many many people don’t have.”
Maria Goddard of Whittington Hospital said Next Meal was making real changes to people’s lives.
“Feeding someone is such a basic expression of caring. Lives can be saved and I believe they already have been by this simple signposting.”
Comedian Sean Lock, a neighbour of Martin’s who also helped with the original launch of Next Meal, shared a few laughs.
“I thought ‘Why not? Why not do something good? And maybe you’ll get something out of it for you – like George Clooney did for Nespresso’.
“I could be the Next Meal guy,” He joked.
The event was hosted by Hornsey and Wood Green MP Catherine West and Gravesham MP Adam Holloway.
Catherine said it was an honour to be associated with Next Meal and praised everyone involved.
Adam agreed and said there were a lot of soup kitchens in the country: “What this is doing is bringing them together.”
The launch followed another recent milestone, the second year of Next Meal Saturday.
On the 10th of October 2019 people around the world will mark World Homeless Day in many varied ways and change the lives of homeless people in their local community.
Exeter Cathedral hosted a Next Meal launch recently. Here’s what Canon Becky Totterdell, St Peter Canon, had to say…
I guess most of us reading this won’t worry too much about where we will find our next meal. But for many people in our society it is a very real anxiety, as we know from the massive use of food banks both locally and around the country.
So on 28th June- Exeter Cathedral was delighted to host the launch of ‘Next Meal’ – an online guide in the making, signposting people to where they can find free food in their own locality, wherever they are in the UK or Europe.
Already rolled out in many parts of the country, this was Exeter’s chance to welcome and publicise Next Meal’s coverage of Devon and the South West.
GPS guidance to local free food
Brainchild of Martin Stone, Next Meal is a website which directs homeless people to nearby soup kitchens using GPS data. Martin, who lectures in Housing and Economics, has been manager of a soup kitchen in Muswell Hill, London, for over ten years, and it was there that he came up with the idea, when he realised that most of the homeless people he met had a smartphone.
Help for well-wishers too
As members of the public, we don’t want to pass by those who ask for our help, but we are usually (and rightly) uncomfortable giving money to homeless people not knowing how it might be used. So the next time you come across someone on the streets who asks you for money, what you can give them instead, by looking up nextmeal.co.uk on your own phone, is information about locations of the nearest centres that provide food, and on which days of the week and times of day.
For those who do not have smartphones, the Next Meal organisation also provides small cards with the website details on, which churches can order for their members to carry around, ready to give to someone they see in need. The Cathedral now has a stock of them on the Chaplains’ and Stewards’ desk and you are welcome to take a handful to give to those who might benefit. Next Meal kindly donated two mobile phone chargers to the Wednesday Kitchen, along with a good supply of Next Meal info cards for the Kitchen’s guests.
High level backing and commendation
Comics Sean Lock and Lee Mack, and actress Naomie Harris, supported the launch, and Theresa May has awarded Martin Stone the ‘Points of Light’ award for the venture, a government award which recognises outstanding individual volunteers whose work is making a positive impact on a whole community.
Next Meal is just one of a number of recent technological initiatives to connect the homeless to local services. Streetlink is an app which tells the user – whether homeless person or concerned passerby – where the nearest night shelters and help centres are located.
Exeter’s city-wide response to the problem of homelessness
There was a great turnout in the Chapter House for the southwest launch of Next Meal. On behalf of the Cathedral, I was delighted to welcome the Lord Mayor of Exeter – Councillor Peter Holland – and Mrs Jacky Holland, other members of Exeter City Council, and representatives from Exeter Food Action, St Petrock’s, Julian House, Food Exeter, the Salvation Army, our own Wednesday Kitchen, Apple, Nexus, the Devon and Cornwall Constabulary, nursing staff from the RD&E emergency department, Exeter College, and Exeter University.
The Lord Mayor spoke inspirationally about a charity he’d been involved with in Plymouth some years earlier, which helped homeless people get back into work by arranging work experience and placements for them. In discussion at the launch, it was clear that everyone had a strong desire not just to help in times of crisis, but to put in place a city-wide Plan. This involves all the agencies represented, and more, to lift people out of homelessness and set them on the path to better health, a home to live in, the opportunity for training and work, help to restore broken relationships, and so to regain their sense of worth and purpose.
Canon Chris Palmer represents the Cathedral in discussions with the Exeter Homelessness Partnership. The Partnership has recently taken a big step forward in agreeing to employ someone to pull all the city’s resources together in order to bring about positive change.
Joined-up thinking
Martin Stone’s passion is to see more of this joined-up thinking in every part of the country, and ultimately for there to be a national strategy that works. He clearly has a significant role as an inspirer, catalyst, and encourager in bringing about change. In my conversation with him over coffee earlier that week, he shared that he suspects his next major work will be to come alongside schools to inspire them to help young people develop the resilience that will enable them to withstand the knocks of life. Only that way can we hope to stem the flow of people who might otherwise spiral downwards to the streets in times of significant adversity. A vast new task indeed!
On June 28, we held a launch event in Exeter Cathedral to highlight homeless charities and create awareness of Next Meal. We were delighted by the turnout, which included the Mayor and many other local dignitaries, as well as a number of charities and media outlets.
If you attended, see if you can recognise yourself in this gallery…
The Next Meal blog 