Volunteers Provide Hundreds Of Hot Meals For Stranded Truck Drivers In England

December 23, 2020

Volunteers in Kent, England, rallied together to make sure truckers, currently stuck due to the border closure, don't go hungry.

Credit: Kent Online

Gravesend Gurdwara, a Sikh Temple, provided 800 hot meals for the lorry drivers stranded in Dover.

Temple leaders received the call around noon and sprung into action as part of a collective effort with local authorities including Kent Police and Kent County Council.

"They [Khalsa Aid] got in touch this morning about 12 o'clock and by 2:30pm they came to collect the food," Jagdev Singh Virdee said. "We made some phone calls to get volunteers together because we are already doing Langar, where we deliver to vulnerable people."

Credit: Barry Goodwin

Together, volunteers rallied to make 500 chickpea curries and 300 mushroom and pasta dishes.

Khalsa Aid founder Ravinder Singh then arranged to pick up the meals from the Gravesend Gurdwara and deliver them to the hungry truckers with the help of a Kent Police escort.

More than 1,000 trucks are parked in the county, filling roadsides as well as the airport.

"An incredible thank you to Gravesend Gurdwara for providing 800 hot meals for the lorry drivers stranded in Dover today," the National Sikh Police Association UK said in a statement.

"Our NSPAUK Kent lead partnered with Langar Aid Khalsa Aid and Kent Police to facilitate the supplies getting to the stranded lorry drivers. It takes a partnership approach to make such things possible and we are happy to support where we can. Thank you to the volunteers who have given their free time to distribute the food today and no doubt will over the next few days."