Mansfield Soup Kitchen finds new home but it still needs your help

Mansfield Soup Kitchen, which is currently based at 24-26 Church Street, opens its doors to feed the town’s homeless every Wednesday evening from 6.30pm.

The vital charity, which also has a shop in the town centre, also supplies rough sleepers with much-needed items including food parcels and toiletries.

But the service was thrown into crisis after the owners discovered they had been victim to a rent scam, meaning they will soon be made homeless themselves.

The soup kitchen’s Sara Spalding said: “In February, we arrived at the soup kitchen to find the window smashed, locks changed and a court notice on the door.

“We discovered we had been conned out of thousands of pounds by two men who told us they owned the premises and land where the soup kitchen is situated.

“Unbeknownst to us, when we’ve been paying them rent since 2018 they’ve been pocketing the money for themselves and not passing it on to the true owner.”

But a new premises has now become available.

A post on the Mansfield Soup Kitchen Facebook page said: “We’ve been offered a place to move the soup kitchen to.

"The amazing Steve Cooling of Valencia Estates, our charity shop landlord, has offered us the use of the adjoining premises and we’ve said ‘yes please’.

"We can have it for as long as we want and have free reign over the inside.

"It needs a lot of work. We need a full kitchen putting in for starters, plumbing work, serving counter, etc. so we still need to keep fundraising to get it all done so we can move ASAP.

"Obviously we don’t know how long we will have in the kitchen as it is now and most of the work needed doing is cosmetic once we have sorted a kitchen.

“Please keep us in your thoughts, we can do this with your support.”

If you would like to help visit www.gofundme.com/f/movethesoupkitchenurgently to make a donation.