Charity pledges to raise funds for refused asylum seekers through sale of cookbook
- The Big Breakfast café in Old Trafford raised money through online crowdfunder to help produce new cookbook
- Profits from book will go to Manchester refugee charity The St Brides Project
- The Covid-19 pandemic hit charities like The Big Breakfast café hard
- Volunteer Bec Chow: 'It just wasn’t possible to open'
Manchester charity The Big Breakfast café is publishing a new cookbook to raise money to provide food and shelter for refugees.
Funds for the book were raised through an online crowdfunder for the St Bride’s Project based in Trafford.
The Big Breakfast started the crowdfunder in the midst of the pandemic and within three months nearly £9,000 had been raised through 250 donors from the local community.
Bec Chow, a volunteer at The Big Breakfast café, said: “The crowdfunder was essential to the cookbook. The printing costs have been covered, which means that the book will be affordable for people of all walks of life.
“The Big Breakfast is all about getting people together and then Covid came along and we definitely could not be running.
“It just wasn’t possible in Covid, the demand was still there, people were stood out in the snow hoping that the doors would open.
“The hope is that when the book comes out, we will have a more regular source of income for the St Brides Project.”
Once a month The Big Breakfast café brings the local community together for breakfast with all the profits being donated to The St Brides Project.
The St Brides Project, formally known as The Destitution Project, provides support for refugees and refused asylum seekers in their bid to achieve a better quality of living by moving to the United Kingdom.
Like most charities that rely on donations and volunteers, the project fell on hard times during the pandemic and problems were exacerbated by the increase in demand on the organisation.
Between 2014 and 2021 there has been a significant increase in the number of UK asylum ‘work in progress’ caseloads and the number of refused asylum seekers subject to removal action has been growing since 2014 and consisted of 39,500 people as of June 2020.
Many asylum seekers will rely on charities like The St Brides Project that simply couldn’t handle the demand due to lockdown.
It is hoped the cookbook will be on sale by Christmas.