A Dublin charity was joined by celebrity chef Donal Skehan during a demanding food run last week.
The Muslim Sisters of Eire host food drives every Friday outside the GPO in order to help out those most in need. The charity experienced a busy night last Friday, with over 450 hot meals dished out to the lengthy queues.
Donal Skehan was a surprising addition to the charity's band of volunteers this week. The food writer is currently filming a documentary on how food and religion are interwined, which led him to get in touch with the faith-based group.
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Sabina Syed is an active member of the Muslim Sisters of Eire. She said that Donal's help at the event was greatly appreciated on such a busy night.
She told Dublin Live: "He wanted a first hand look at how we run things and also wanted to see how our volunteers work the food runs while we are fasting for Ramadan ourselves. It was an eye opening experience for both Donal and ourselves. He spent the entire day with one of our volunteers in preparation for the soup run."
The charity previously experienced a shortage of hot meals due to the high volume of people at one of their food drives. Although this was not the case at their most recent event, Sabina said that volunteers were left struck by the amount of pregnant women and families who queued up, with the charity eventually running out of baby food donations.
Many of the volunteers are Muslim and are participating in Ramadan, which requires them to abstain from food and drink during daylight hours. Sabina said that members often forget their hunger or thirst while working due to the busy nature of their work.
She explained: "I remember last week volunteers got delayed and they didn’t even realise it was time for them to break the fast. You get so engrossed in what you’re doing."
She added: "This Friday was quite warm so everyone was quite thirsty. Normally it's the hunger that affects people more but this time it was thirst. We enjoy what we're doing though because we're helping so many unfortunate people out there."
The charity is heavily reliant on restaurants who agree to donate hot meals, while volunteers with access to a HSE registered kitchen also cook for the events. The charity is appealing for more restaurants to get in touch to help with the demand.
Sabina explained: "The cost of living crisis means that items we buy ourselves for the food runs are doubling in price. We always welcome donations of non perishable foods."
People can donate cash towards the soup runs via the charity's website. Restaurants can also get in touch through the group's social media pages.
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