Doorways was co founded by Craig (a full time working fabricator) and Lisa Wheatley (a school cook) with friends Patrick and Tina Hall in May 2015 to help homeless rough sleepers (around 15) in Derby city centre, by providing service users with a hot meal, a sandwich pack and a hot drink.

 

This issue was brought to our attention after Lisa had helped another group within the city by cooking meals for them to give out to homeless people. We set up the group with friends and a few family members to help make sandwiches and distribute the items  and went out three nights a week.

 

It soon became apparent that there was a bigger issue within the city of more vulnerable people than we had anticipated. People were coming to use our service from hostels, shared accommodation, people in their own property on low income and even people with no life skills to cook for themselves. Our numbers increased quite quickly and numbers went up to around 60 visitors by the end of 2015.

 

Four years on and with the help and backing of several businesses, who help by donating end of day food items. and having a Facebook group with over 8000 members the support has been overwhelming.  We have a core group of volunteers who help with cooking and the running of Doorways on our nights out, we regularly see over 100 visitors on each of our nights out now and have recently become a non-profit making registered charity (1182774).

 

Our aim is to have access to a building which we can use to cook the meals, use for storage and have as a drop in centre for people to come to for information in our sector, this is alongside still having our pop up street kitchen 3 nights a week.

​

THEN COVID-19 HIT.

​

Since March 2020, our plans have been put on hold as we have been unable to run the street kitchen and keep within the government guidelines set regarding social distancing and large gatherings in public spaces. We have however still been able to continue helping vulnerable people/families by setting up a food bank and produce table from our home address. We set up a food produce table every Saturday, between 1pm and 2pm where people can come along and take what they need to put meals on the table.

 

We regularly see over 120 households each time we are open. In addition to this, we have delivered or had collected over 35,000 food parcels to those in need.

​

Our aim is to continue to support people during the current crisis and adhere to our motto.

​

OUR STREET KITCHEN

Doorways Derby is made up of a group of volunteers who go into DERBY CITY once a week on a Tuesday evenings between 8pm and 9pm. We set up at the Bonny Prince Charlie statue on Full Street (postcode DE1).

We take out hot meals, sandwiches, hot and cold drinks, clothes, toiletries, blankets or sleeping bags, which have all been donated by members of the public as well as donations from organisations such as; Tesco, Greggs, Birds bakery, Asda, Morrisons and many more.

Our aim is to help homeless and vulnerable people who are in need, we also supply food parcels and support to families who find themselves struggling to make ends meet.

We rely totally on donations from the public which is why we ask you to add as many people as possible to this group. 

We are often asked how people can help us, our members help us by cooking meals or making sandwiches for us to take out, members can also volunteer on our nights out or help by fund raising or collecting donations. Simply sharing our posts and raising awareness can help us as well.

Thank you so much for taking the time to read this and for any help or donations which you may be able to offer, all help and support is and will always be very much appreciated by our visitors.

​

BE SOMEBODY THAT MAKES EVERYBODY FEEL LIKE A SOMEBODY