Peterborough charity successfully provides more than 1,000 free meals for Mother’s Day

Staff from Mirage Wedding and Catering Services were up at 4am on Sunday, working through to 12pm to produce the meals, which consisted partly of roast chicken, grilled vegetables and rice.

Well over 1,000 were produced and handed out free of charge to deserving mothers across the city, many of whom had been nominated by their children, as well as to Peterborough Soup Kitchen. Local Conservative candidate for Dogsthorpe, Ishfaq Hussain also lent his support on the day, helping to deliver and gather hundreds further orders from the Coronaheores Peterborough Facebook group.

Around 550 meals were also delivered directly to homes across Peterborough.

The co-ordination of all of the volunteers, meals being cooked and subsequent deliveries was done by Tania Tasmin on behalf of the Zi Foundation, the charity founded by her father, Zillur Hussain.

She was also supported by volunteers Laima Kontrauskaite, Eva Borakova and Katarina Nemcova.

The Zi Foundation has donated thousands of meals to people in need across Peterborough during the pandemic and, alongside their work in the city, have also built six schools in Bangladesh, with another in progress at the moment.

Zillur said: “I want to thank all of the volunteers, who helped cook, package and deliver the food, especially Mohsin from Mirage. His team was up before sunlight making the meals for so many to enjoy.

“We were determined not to say ‘no’ to any mothers and it was actually really emotional reading some of the messages from people that I received afterwards. It is a real reminder that we all need to think more of others and what they are experiencing.”