On a cold October’s day in 2018, Shane Cole sighed. Barely any customers had braved the torrential rain to visit his street food trailer in Letchworth, Hertfordshire and he had a huge pile of meals leftover.
On a napkin, he totalled his losses for the day – which came to £860. On the other side of the napkin, he wrote down something very different.
‘I’d been about to throw my food away, when I thought, there must be something else I could do,’ Shane recalls.’I wrote ideas down on the napkin about ways I could get the food to people in need. I also wrote down the words: “feed up warm up.”’
Shane, 37, is speaking to Metro from the Lamex Stadium, home of Stevenage Football Club.
There’s a steady stream of people dashing in and a steady hubbub of conversation across the room. But they’re not there for a football match, they’re here to eat. A man in a high vis jacket is huddled over a warm meal, while a young boy walks around with loaves of bread in his arms. Two women pick up tinned meals as one pushes a pram.
It’s a huge spread of people who, through homelessness, poverty or loneliness, have found themselves in need of a little help. They find that support at Feed Up Warm Up, founded by Shane in 2018 after that rainy evening in his food truck.
Although the charity is shaped by his background in catering, it also stems from Shane’s own experience with living on the streets.
‘I had a challenging childhood, to say the least,’he explains. ‘I went into foster care at 11 and lived in homes up and down the country. I was always rebelling.
‘At 15, I went to live with my dad who, before, I hadn’t had a relationship with. That lasted four months before I had to leave due to violence. Then I ended up in a squat in Devon which ended up being burned down. I was on the streets from November 2005 to January 2006.’
He continues: ‘That Christmas I never opened a present or pulled a cracker. I remember spending the day watching families walk past me. There were kids on new rollerblades, speeding past on skateboards. Their lives were carrying on, mine was on pause. For three months I was homeless. I contemplated suicide, developed a class A drug addiction, I was down and out basically. It was game over for me.’
Luckily, Shane was offered a lifeline. A man named Mike, from the charity The Freedom Centre, met him on the streets and encouraged him to come to church. After a two-hour service, Shane was asked if he was interested in rehab. He said yes and, paid for by the charity, transformed his life and embarked on catering courses.
After leaving rehab, he met future wife – Angie – and relocated from Devon to Letchworth in Hertfordshire to work as a chef. In 2016, he founded his food truck.
After scribbling his ideas down in the rain in October 2018, within a month Shane had put them into action. He mobilised a group of volunteers and in just a few weeks, had begun to distribute free food to vulnerable people across the town of Hitchin in Hertfordshire. The charity has since expanded to help people in nearby Stevenage.
‘We help people who have suffered abuse, sexual violence, domestic violence, sexual trafficking. There’s been refugees and asylum seekers through the door, they carry really sad stories. Sometimes elderly people tell us coming here is the highlight of their week. When I hear that, I know I need to do everything it takes to last another year.’
Feed Up Warm Up volunteers are kept busy; there are 89 people at this week’s drop in in Stevenage. One of these people was Caitlin*, who speaks to Metro on a very special day. After six years using the service, today is her first trial shift as a volunteer with the charity.
‘At 17 I was six months pregnant and found myself homeless over winter. The council wouldn’t help me, I was alone,’ Caitlin*, 23, explains. ‘Then I discovered Feed Up Warm Up. They got me a tent, food, without them I really don’t know what would have happened to me. I would have suffered a lot more. Shane even paid for a hotel for me to stay in at one point.
‘Last week I told myself “I don’t want to be a client anymore, I want to give back.” So it’s my first trial shift today. I think it’s going pretty well.’
As well as offering food at drop-in sessions, charity staff find hotel rooms for vulnerable people, provide essentials like beds for people moving into a flat for the first time and give free haircuts.
They also receive contributions from across the local community and from independent companies such as Tops Pizza, Mr Spud and Misya Meze Grill. Local celebrity ‘Nala the Station Cat’ has also made a special visit to oversee tinned donations in Stevenage.
Meanwhile, former England goalkeeper David James is the celebrity ambassador for Feed Up Warm Up, and has appeared on shows like Pointless and Catchpoint to raise money for the charity.
An army of volunteers, nicknamed the Orange Army due to the brightly coloured tops they wear, also support Shane in his mission to make a difference.
One of them is Liam Shields, a senior sales executive at Astute Electronics Ltd who spends one evening a week working with the charity. He discovered it quite by accident while driving home from work two-and-half years ago.
‘I noticed a sea of orange t-shirts outside the Lamex Stadium and wondered, what are these people doing?’ Liam tells Metro. ‘To begin with, I started to volunteer in the foodbank and then built a connection with the clients. Now my role is like a “buddy”, people here know I’m a safe person to talk to. Sometimes our conversations start with a simple question like “how was your day?” or “what do you have for dinner?.”
‘Seeing people walk out here with a smile on their face is why I do this. That’s when I think “job done.” Everyone’s story is different, and I know it is cliche but you can’t judge a book by its cover.’
Feed Up Warm Up’s team have won accolades at the Comet Community Awards as well as the Pride of Stevenage Awards in recent years. Shane no longer runs his food truck, as he now needs to put his full efforts into the charity.
Moving forward, he hopes to grow into other counties in England and, one day when money allows, create a dedicated space to rehabilitate homeless people and give them the support they need to return to ‘normal life.’
Shane continues: ‘No matter how big the charity gets, one thing we’ll never do is means-test. I’ve spoken to people who had to show three months worth of bank statements to get food. With that, straight away your dignity and self respect is thrown out the window.
‘We were offered £25,000 of funding once if it was means-tested, and I turned it down, because I knew I couldn’t offer this service to everyone if I took it. I want this to be for everyone. When I was 17 and homeless I went to a soup kitchen and they asked me about 20 questions before I could get any food. It felt like a police interrogation.
‘So now, I treat people how I’d like to be treated, and people trust us because of that.’
Click here to find out more about Feed Up Warm Up
*Name has been changed
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