The Inside Scoop On Lawrence Lunches

Ok, so when I was 16 I started a charity called The Lawrence Effect. I wanted to help homeless people so I started with giving out lunches in central London every Sunday, I called it Lawrence Lunches. At the time, it looked like this could be my greatest achievement, it was something I had wanted to do for a while but in hindsight it was actually my greatest failure.

Cool, so let me start from the beginning.

I've already spoken about my grandma and how she's my best friend but to be honest that’s a relatively new friendship. The original favourite person in my family was my grandad. Now, I'm not going to talk about him too much because I don't have time to start crying and getting all emotional I have things to do. But long story short he was the funniest, kindest, smartest person ever, he filled the role of an active father figure in my life and is probably the reason why I wasn't completely messed up by my parents' divorce. So, as a key positive influence in my life I named the charity after him: Lawrence Arinze. 

I think that everyone has an injustice in the world that really tugs at the heart strings, whether it be countries with no clean water, children without education, FGM; there's always one that when the advert to donate comes on TV we feel more inclined to donate. Mine is the homeless. As part of my church I volunteer with the soup kitchen team that serve a full English breakfast every Saturday all year round, a full Christmas dinner and a hamper with a turkey and all the trimmings at Christmas as well as operating the food bank. When I first started volunteering I was so scared of the service users (this is the respectful name we call the homeless because there’s more to their story that just being homeless). I would stay in the kitchen or tidy up the food bank, anything to avoid interacting with them, I thought they were all dangerous druggies that would kill me in my sleep. Until one week when we were understaffed so I had to take a cup of tea to one of the service users who was on crutches, she asked me how my week was and then we started talking. The week after I offered to sit down and talk with them and soon after that I became of the team leaders.

Anyway, back to Lawrence Lunches. So, after this experience volunteering I thought what else can I do to help. I decided to start small with lunches and then eventually I wanted to create a hotel style building where the homeless could come. They would only be allowed to stay for 2 - 4 weeks allowing them to have a room, get a haircut, get skills and use the address to apply for jobs or state-funded housing. If they showed progress they would be allowed to stay for another 2 weeks until they got back on their feet. The idea being that eventually it be a fully self-sufficient model that would be solely funded by donations from successful ex-residents and there would be at least one in each city. Yeah, I know I dream big.

In my naive mind this would be done by the time I was 30. I would get a job with a good salary, buy and let out properties to fund the start-up costs and then eventually save the world by the age of 60. Ok so cool, I basically wanted to be the patron saint of homeless people and all was going to plan until I got to uni. When I was in London I was already struggling to find people that had as much enthusiasm towards my cause as I did, and that was when I could guilt trip my friends into helping. Now I was in a new city with people I didn't know and already having to deal with making friends and keeping on top of my uni work, I didn't make time to continue. I even applied for a grant during summer and found out I got it when I was at uni, unfortunately I had to decline as I had no idea where to start in my new city. Actually, I'm lying. To be completely honest there are arguably more homeless people in my uni city that at home in London, so I don't know why I didn't help.

So, a year later I'm back in London and I want to start it up again. But I didn't, instead I spent my summer being a lady of leisure: going on holiday, eating out and shopping. I went back to volunteering at the soup kitchen but Lawrence Lunches stayed untouched.

Ok, so now nearly a year and a half after I started I'm trying to get back into it because arguably this is the reason I'm at uni. To get a good job to finance me jumping on the property ladder, eventually owning multiple properties, using the rent to build the hotel/rehabilitation centre thing and basically be a hero to the homeless. 

So, if I'm not doing that what's the point of uni? To have a lot of money from a job? To go on endless holidays? That’s all well and good don't get me wrong, but surely there needs to be some sort of purpose to my life as a whole. I don't want to die being a rich, holiday goer and that’s it.

Nah.