MEET TH E FOOD
HEROES OF THE CRISIS
PHOTOGRAPHS:
UK
POWER
NETWORKS,
ISTOCK/GETTY
IMAGES
These generous souls were feeding people in need long before the lockdown – and
continue to do so, armed with birthday cakes, a sprinkle of celebrity goodwill
and a whole lot of mushrooms... Phoebe Stone reportsA rare morning off work in 2015
gave UK Power Networks engineer
Dom the chance to help drop off his
children at school in East Sussex.
When he got there, he was shocked
to notice how scruffy some of the
children were at the school gates- children who looked as if they
hadn’t eaten breakfast.
Hunger aid charity The Trussell
Trust estimates 4.5 million children
in the UK live in poverty. “I’ve got
two small children,” says Dom.
“As a parent, to imagine them not
having anything to eat broke me.”
Determined to help, Dom wasted
no time and, that same day, drafted
plans for a charity that could feed
families using surplus food: Dom’s
Food Mission.
With his wife Alexandria,
Dom organised food drop-offs
in carparks and donation days in
stores. “It wasn’t long before our
front room looked like a warehouse,”
he jokes. After five months, he
signed his first supermarket
partnership with Marks & Spencer.
Today, the charity feeds 4,000
people a month with excess foodfrom partner retailers, including
families, refuge centres, the elderly
and homeless people.
Running in tandem with the food
mission is award-winning project
A Helping Hand, which sees Dom
use surplus food to teach cookery
skills in local schools. “We make
lasagne and homemade soups with
children who don’t know what
a chopping board is – some of
whom won’t eat that night,”
explains Dom. “Giving them these
life skills is massive.” The scheme
was awarded a grant from the
National Lottery Community Fund
last October, at which point Dom
left his day job with dreams of
rolling out the charity’s modelDOM WARREN
THE MAN WHO
FEEDS THOUSANDS