King Charles and Mayor Sadiq Khan meet the
realises finding the project, which collects surplus food from suppliers and redistributes it to charities, through his flatmate couldn’t have come at a better time. “Finding work, not seeing anybody, not socialising – for me, my mental health was all over the place.” WHAT DOES A SHIFT LOOK LIKE? Mark started by taking on a Monday morning shift at the project which has branches in all corners of London. “When you’ve got nothing lined up, Monday mornings are really hard and quite difficult because you think, ‘Oh I could just lie in’. So I used to do Monday morning from 8:45 am until 12:30 pm,” he recalls. The volunteer explains that roles at the food bank can range from becoming a driver and delivering food to cutting onions in the industrial kitchen as lots of the crates full of dry and fresh food donated by major supermarkets are used to create batches of ready meals. These meals are sent out to homeless shelters, women’s refuges, and other charities. On average, Mark’s depot will create an average of 4000 meals a day. “The sheer volume is just mind-blowing,” Mark says. “I did one shift, and I spent three hours fluffing rice because that’s a job.” Being out in the warehouse has also been a rewarding part of Mark’s volunteering experience as he has made friends and met others who are keen to give back. He recalls meeting Jan, a fellow volunteer, who also happened to be a freelance graphic designer, with whom he clicked straight away. “Not only are we both doing something really good, but you’re bonding with people. My mental health was elevated from being someone sitting at home and thinking, ‘I can’t walk around that park again on my own’.” KINDNESS AT WORK With the various jobs Mark has taken on as a volunteer for The Felix Project, he has been able to witness the impact it has firsthand. “It’s completely blown my mind. Initially, I thought
kitchen staff at the East-London depot
Marcus Roberts, relationship manger (centre), with volunteers
t a time when Mark Setchfield was searching for a sense of purpose and a way to connect with others through the COVID-19 pandemic, the graphic designer fell in love with volunteering at The Felix Project – a food bank that has completely changed his life. “I wasn’t good. I was in a really bad place because I’d been at home for nearly three years and it’s isolating,” the 54-year-old says as he sits down with HELLO! ahead of World Kindness Day to share how the creation of “a community within a community” reframed his life. WHERE IT ALL STARTED Having moved back to the UK from Dubai mid- pandemic, Mark quickly realised that the unreliability of freelance work and the isolation of remote working was taking a serious toll on his mental health. “It was really difficult,” Mark remembers. “Finding work, not seeing anybody, not socialising – for me, my mental health was all over the place.” It was a difficult adjustment having left his lifestyle behind in Dubai and with the cost of living in London. Looking back, the East London-dwelling designer A
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