Helping to tackle food poverty

We’ve supported local people suffering from food poverty by donating our surplus Christmas party food to Cambridge Sustainable Food. Due to the pandemic, in 2020 we were forced to close our doors under the then government lockdown rules, however this year saw the return of the Christmas party celebrations at the Old Hall Ely. Adorned with all the trimmings of the festive season (and no less than 22 Christmas trees!) we offered a selection of exclusive and mixed Christmas parties, traditional Christmas dinners and of course mouth-watering desserts!

Unfortunately, despite our requirement for Covid passes, the unpredicted rise of the Omicron variant of Covid and isolation measures meant that a small number of guests or companies felt unable to continue with their parties. With the food already having had been ordered, Mrs M couldn’t stand the thought of it going to waste and wanted to help those who needed it most. She said:

“We completely understand that some people felt unable to attend their planned parties this year. The Omicron variant wasn’t around when many people initially booked their parties, and of course the stricter guidelines for isolation would’ve been detrimental to many businesses if their staff were unable to work. We implemented stricter measures to protect guests and staff but unfortunately that reassurance wasn’t enough and some parties felt the risk was too high, particularly those in the health care sector.

However as we had already ordered the food for the guests we couldn’t see it go to waste. We were put in contact with Cambridge Sustainable Food, a local community support group helping those in food poverty. They rely on donations to ensure everyone in our community gets the support they need. We emailed their friendly team to let them know what we had and someone got in touch right away to arrange collection.”