Paola: Cooking Up a Storm
Written by Sebastian Old
Paola volunteers weekly in the cooking team at The Bus Shelter MK preparing meals at home and delivering to our guests on-board. She handles the responsibility even in this quarantine environment, like clockwork.
“I volunteer to cook and provide a meal to help the people who want to get their lives back on track. You need to be organised and know what you are planning to cook to source ingredients in time. It’s also important to deliver within the health and hygiene guidelines.”
As a nutrition/ weight loss practitioner Paola uses food as a foundation and a focus to help improve her clients lives.
“Helping to feed and knowing they have a warm meal at The Bus Shelter gives me great pleasure. Food is a fundamental base for all challenges that life may throw at you, and having that routine around mealtimes can help towards rebuilding lives.”
Maintaining mental and physical wellbeing is often testing in ordinary climates and adjusting to life in lockdown presents entirely new obstacles. Traditional coping strategies like gyms or meeting up with friends over a coffee are prohibited. Paola cultivates a healthy lifestyle in a various ways, including mountain biking and running. At home she works through online classes. This often involves military fitness exercises: burpees, squats and runs wearing a weighted vest.
The Bus Shelter MK’s stance on food preparation is not unlike a military operation; food is planned in advance, rotas are filled, budgets allocated previously, and ingredients sourced prior to schedule.
“We all volunteer certain days depending on what we can do. The key is to plan ahead when sourcing meals. I look at prices, keep costs down and think of the charity. It has been especially challenging since the restriction came into place within supermarkets. I’ve had to adapt, utilising local high street business farmers and delivery slots. Massive sacks of potatoes are always good to have at home! Getting creative with ingredients that I have in stock, it’s similar to an episode of Ready! Steady! Cook!” She says.
It’s an organised, well-oiled machine. Coronavirus has forced global change. Social and professional tendencies forced to either apply the breaks or find inventive ways of shifting gears. As far as Paola is concerned, there are still mouths to feed. Volunteers have adjusted their approach to sourcing food. Paola and the rest of the cooks are even more savvy when sourcing ingredients and preparing food in response to an increasingly scarce food source.
“Now I’m using more local shops and online slots to avoid busy supermarkets. I just try to get in lots of protein and veg and keep the costs down as much as possible.”
Her desire to help others is evident. She also volunteers at The RSPCA MK, Harrys Rainbow, MK Hospital charity and The Winter Night Shelter. She once fostered an injured cat for eight weeks on behalf of the charity, Cat Welfare Luton. The animal was found lying in a drain by passing paramedics with his pelvis and legs dislocated and requiring reconstruction.
The Bus Shelter MK is one of the few sheltered charities in the United Kingdom accepting the pets of its homeless guests. Funded by supporters’ donations, The Bus Shelter MK offers spacious kennels on its premises, capable of housing multiple dogs. This often means the difference between homeless guests becoming reintegrated into working society by moving into the bus, and remaining homeless. This is due to the simple, yet understandable fact that many are unwilling to part with their animals.
Paola’s cooking contributions aren’t limited to human guests. She works with the RSPCA and makes regular trips to collect food donated by large companies, for the Shelter’s ever-changing dog population.
“The local RSCPA are really helpful and will offer up donations when they can. A lady called Sally who runs the local cat kennels is always happy to help when she can with donations to the dogs on the bus!”
It’s not just the charity’s accommodation of animals that appealed to Paola, she especially supports the shelter’s long-term approach to combating homelessness.
“The Bus Shelter (MK) stood out to me because it gives people a fixed abode over a longer period of time as opposed to a bed for the night. That means guests can start applying for jobs, receiving letters, and taking control of their lives again.” She says.
The Bus Shelter MK is almost always a long-term project. It’s an address where people with the right attitude can gradually realise their potential, regain their confidence and stand on their own two feet through hard work, support and structure. It offers security, shelter, personal mentoring, regular conversations and warm meals.
This vision’s impossible without the combination of little and large contributions from volunteers, donors and trustees who fortify the foundations of the guests on their journeys out of homelessness. Just as she digs around for the best ingredients in local supermarkets, Paola is very much part of the carefully assembled recipe that makes the charity tick.
Pam Williams - Chair
