To celebrate the hitting of their £10m target for the Food for London Appeal, the Evening Standard shone a light to thank the city for their fundraising efforts and contributions.
Enormous thank you messages were beamed onto St Paul’s Cathedral and Piccadilly Circus, using Peter Blake’s specially commissioned artwork from earlier in the year, to highlight the £10 million raised and 20 million meals delivered.
For the first time ever, the Evening Standard has also produced a variant front page for today’s edition, celebrating with both iconic images as well as a letter from proprietor Evgeny Lebedev.
Evgeny Lebedev’s letter:
Dear London,
Today our Food For London Now appeal surpassed its target of raising £10 million to feed London’s poorest.
Nine months ago, when the UK first entered a historic lockdown to tackle a novel threat, we set ourselves a challenge. The situation was grave: the economy was flatlining, community organisations saw their funding slashed and many could not leave their homes or access basic essentials.
We are a commuter paper and we felt the pain of the pandemic almost as acutely as many others. So we resolved to do what we could to help Londoners who needed it at this difficult time; and give people the tools to help each other.
We have worked with The Felix Project, the country’s largest food redistribution charity, to supply hospitals, schools, and frontline charities like With Compassion with food.
Through the generosity of readers, we were able to turbocharge the operations of The Felix Project: in February it distributed 20,000 meals per day; now it does 100,000 per day.
Our journalists have travelled the length and breadth of the city, shining a light on the people and organisations doing their bit to aid the local community. We have also told the stories of those who have suffered the most from Covid-19.
As I wrote in March, the Evening Standard is Britain’s foremost campaigning newspaper. We don’t only report on the facts; we try to make a difference. In the spirit of that, this victory is also the first step towards opening a social kitchen for London, as a lasting commitment to tackling hunger in our capital.
But for now, this letter is for all the those who worked on the campaign, for all the volunteers who gave their time to help others and for all the supporters who donated their resources. There is only one thing left to say: Thank You London.
