If you have jolted into 2024 with a bump – and you’d like some Christmas nostalgia already to keep you going, well, look no further.

As expected, the Sufra Christmas Day Feast was a roaring success! Don’t take my word for it – take a look at the day in numbers, and a whole host of pictures to see for yourself.

 

265 Christmas Dinners

including chocolates and fruit to nibble on, a warming soup to start, a delicious Christmas Dinner with all of the trimmings and a fruity Christmas cake.

 

254 Volunteer Hours

decorating the space, turning a school canteen into a winter wonderland, prepping more veg than you can imagine, and ensuring a big portion of TLC went into each dinner, providing a Sufra Taxi Service for the day, collecting and dropping guests back home, entertaining our guests, serenading our guests with violin and cello renditions of Christmas tunes, and some old family favourites too, helping with an epic clean-up restoring the school back to normal!

 

53 Volunteers

prepping a full Christmas dinner for over 200 is no mean feat – and getting everyone there on a day with no public transport even less! It really does take a village!

 

2 Van Loads of Produce, Equipment and Decorations

went zooming back and forth between Ark Elvin Academy and Sufra in the days leading up to Christmas day – making sure that we didn’t forget anything!

 

2 Present Collections

through our fantastic partners That’s a Wrap and Ace Café – we had hundreds of presents to distribute! Making sure families have something special to give to their children is important to us.

 

1 Fantastic Kitchen and Canteen

Our partnership with Ark Elvin Academy is very special to us. Located in the heart of the community, the local secondary school opened their doors on Christmas day to allow the whole thing to be possible. Our regular evening kitchen hosted at Ark Elvin Academy is also reopening in just 2 weeks! Come along and see us in action…

 

1 Guest Chef Appearance

from our friend Saima Khan from Hampstead Kitchen. As is now tradition (we’ll hold you to this next year too!) Saima came down to support with cooking up a storm. We are very lucky!

 

1 Santa Claus

in the form of our Executive Director, Rajesh Makwana, who arrived with his elves and helpers in tow, and made sure that every child came away with a Christmas present that they were happy with.

 

1 Brilliant Sponsor

The Beta Charitable Trust have been supporting Sufra since 2013. They sponsored our Christmas efforts, enabling us to provide such a special day to our community.